The government is expected to be lenient in its stance toward illegal factories built on farmland if they are registered with a government program, Minister of Economic Affairs Shen Jong-chin (沈榮津) said yesterday ahead of a deadline in July next year to resolve the issue.
There would be no sunset provision for amendments to the Factory Management Act (工廠管理輔導法) passed about a decade ago, which granted temporary licenses for illegal factories to operate through June next year while they work toward becoming legitimate operations, he said.
The ministry has proposed that registered illegal factories be allowed to continue operating past the deadline indefinitely, provided that that they pass biannual environmental and safety inspections, Shen said on the sidelines of talks with lawmakers regarding progress on Kaohsiung’s Asian New Bay Area development project.
Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) has made it clear that the government would not extend the same leniency to unregistered illegal factories, he added.
The upcoming revision of the act aims to speed up registration of Taiwan’s estimated 38,000 unregistered illegal factories, of which about 40 percent reside on farmland, Shen said.
However, environmental group Citizen of the Earth, Taiwan said that the move could exacerbate existing problems, given poor results in the past.
Over the past decade, 7,438 illegal factories completed the process to earn a temporary license, but of those that succeeded, only 43 relocated to industrial zones with the help of the government, while only nine managed to meet the conditions to gain legal status, the group said.
However, the act’s upcoming revision represents a pathway for redress, and would help the government identify and regulate unregistered factories, Citizen of the Earth, Taiwan said.
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