Key economic indicators are showing positive trends, including better-than-expected GDP growth and a record-setting stock market performance, which means the government is on the right track, Premier William Lai (賴清德) said at a Cabinet meeting yesterday.
Economic growth last year was 2.6 percent, up from 1.5 percent in 2016.
Taiwan’s benchmark index, which has stayed above 10,000 points for months, on Tuesday closed at 11,253 points, the highest level in almost 28 years, Lai said.
Photo: CNA
Companies traded on the TAIEX had a combined annual revenue of NT$32.7 trillion (US$1.12 trillion) last year, the highest in Taiwan’s history.
The unemployment rate last year was 3.76 percent, the lowest in nearly 17 years, Lai said.
“It shows that President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) national development policies are the right design,” Cabinet spokesman Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) quoted Lai as saying.
The nation’s export orders last year increased by 11 percent from a year earlier to a record-high US$492.8 billion, and the total value of exports last year was US$317.4 billion, the nation’s second-highest figure since record keeping began.
“The numbers indicate that the economy has improved. The better companies are able to receive orders, the more stable employment is,” Lai said.
The next challenge is wage stagnation and improvements to social security, he said.
Meanwhile, to improve Taiwan’s competitiveness in recruiting foreign professionals, the Ministry of Economic Affairs is to upgrade its job-matching Web site, Contact Taiwan, which is designed as an e-recruitment solution for public and private-sector firms to hire overseas jobseekers.
The Act for the Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及僱用法), which was approved in October last year and is to take effect on Feb. 8, would ease restrictions on residency, work permits, taxation and a pension benefit for foreigners.
The act would extend the maximum periods of work permits and Alien Resident Certificates from three to five years, and unemployed foreigners would be allowed to stay in Taiwan for up to six months looking for new employment.
Eleven new laws associated with the act are to be launched by March 15, and Lai ordered the Cabinet to expedite the legislative and enforcement process.
A Chinese aircraft carrier group entered Japan’s economic waters over the weekend, before exiting to conduct drills involving fighter jets, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said yesterday. The Liaoning aircraft carrier, two missile destroyers and one fast combat supply ship sailed about 300km southwest of Japan’s easternmost island of Minamitori on Saturday, a ministry statement said. It was the first time a Chinese aircraft carrier had entered that part of Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), a ministry spokesman said. “We think the Chinese military is trying to improve its operational capability and ability to conduct operations in distant areas,” the spokesman said. China’s growing
Nine retired generals from Taiwan, Japan and the US have been invited to participate in a tabletop exercise hosted by the Taipei School of Economics and Political Science Foundation tomorrow and Wednesday that simulates a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan in 2030, the foundation said yesterday. The five retired Taiwanese generals would include retired admiral Lee Hsi-min (李喜明), joined by retired US Navy admiral Michael Mullen and former chief of staff of the Japan Self-Defense Forces general Shigeru Iwasaki, it said. The simulation aims to offer strategic insights into regional security and peace in the Taiwan Strait, it added. Foundation chair Huang Huang-hsiung
PUBLIC WARNING: The two students had been tricked into going to Hong Kong for a ‘high-paying’ job, which sent them to a scam center in Cambodia Police warned the public not to trust job advertisements touting high pay abroad following the return of two college students over the weekend who had been trafficked and forced to work at a cyberscam center in Cambodia. The two victims, surnamed Lee (李), 18, and Lin (林), 19, were interviewed by police after landing in Taiwan on Saturday. Taichung’s Chingshui Police Precinct said in a statement yesterday that the two students are good friends, and Lin had suspended her studies after seeing the ad promising good pay to work in Hong Kong. Lee’s grandfather on Thursday reported to police that Lee had sent
A Chinese ship ran aground in stormy weather in shallow waters off a Philippines-controlled island in the disputed South China Sea, prompting Filipino forces to go on alert, Philippine military officials said yesterday. When Philippine forces assessed that the Chinese fishing vessel appeared to have run aground in the shallows east of Thitu Island (Jhongye Island, 中業島) on Saturday due to bad weather, Philippine military and coast guard personnel deployed to provide help, but later saw that the ship had been extricated, Philippine navy regional spokesperson Ellaine Rose Collado said. No other details were immediately available, including if there were injuries among
RSS