The Control Yuan yesterday censured the Executive Yuan for shortcomings in its management of cross-strait trade and relations.
In its report, the watchdog body cited the executive branch's alleged flaws over the 1996 decision to introduce the "no haste, be patient" policy, efforts to prevent loan defaults by Taiwanese investors in China and to facilitate Taiwanese financial institutions providing services in China.
The report was issued approximately one year after the Control Yuan's investigation began.
The censure said, "The Executive Yuan appears flawed for failing to prevent [debt-laden] businessmen from disposing of their assets in Taiwan ... it has not adopted effective and timely measures to authorize domestic banks to provide financial services in China ... and absented itself inappropriately from the making of the `no haste, be patient policy.'"
Control Yuan member Huang Huang-shien (黃煌雄) said: "The few unethical Taiwanese businessmen who have defaulted on loans in Taiwan but invested in China are to be condemned. The Executive Yuan is to be censured for failing to resolve such problems."
A number of businesspeople are suspected of selling all their assets in Taiwan before investing in China so they can stay there and not have to return home and pay off their loans -- thereby contributing to the high non-performing loans ratio of domestic banks.
The director of the Mainland Affairs Council's Department of Economic Affairs, Fu Don-cheng (傅棟成), said at a news conference yesterday that the government "continues to monitor the businessmen in question and is adopting a stricter inspection system to lower the ratio of bad debt in domestic banks.
The Cabinet was also criticized for "not taking vigorous measures to enable domestic financial institutions to provide financial services in China to Taiwanese businessmen who invest there," thereby damaging Taiwan's competitiveness.
But Fu reminded reporters that Beijing prohibited Taiwanese banks from establishing branches before China joined the WTO last December, one month before Taiwan acceded to the organization.
"Since both China and Taiwan joined the WTO, we have started to accelerate the opening up of Taiwan's financial institutions in China," Fu said.
The final matter earning the executive branch censure dates back to 1996. The Cabinet was chastised for its non-participation in the decision-making process to introduce then president Lee Teng-hui's (李登輝) "no haste, be patient" policy.
That policy was abandoned by the DPP government last year.
The Executive Yuan must respond to the censure within two months by outlining remedial action it has taken and plans to take.
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