Vice Premier Lin Hsin-yi (
Lin Chia-lung said the Executive Yuan officials hope to tell the public about the negative consequences of failing to pass the legislature at the earliest possible date.
The ruling DPP caucus at the Legislative Yuan has proposed that an extra legislative session be held in July to ratify pressing bills.
The DPP caucus plans to initiate an endorsement of legislators in late June for an extra session, according to Lin Chia-lung.
Among the six draft bills, two are revisions of existing laws -- the Statute Governing the Relations of People on Both Sides of the Taiwan Strait (台灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) and the Resolution Trust Committee Fund Regulatory Provisions (金融重建基金設置及管理條例).
Lin Chia-lung said the Cabinet expects that with the ratification of the revised Resolution Trust Committee (RTC) provisions, the fund -- which is urgently needed to clear financial problems -- can be enlarged to NT$1.05 trillion.
Cabinet statistics indicate that after clearing debts for 44 local financial institutions, only some NT$40 billion of the NT$140 billion fund is available, while several pressing cases involving problem banks are pending due to the small size of the RTC fund.
As to the revision of the Statute Governing the Relations of People on Both Sides of the Taiwan Strait, the spokesman said that any further delay in ratifying the revised statute will hinder cross-strait cargo transportation and commercial exchanges.
Lin Chia-lung also stressed the importance of passing new laws regulating real estate and securities, free-trade harbor zone management and the agricultural monetary system, as well as the establishment of a monetary supervision and management committee, in order to implement monetary reform that can bolster the country's ailing economy.
A total lunar eclipse coinciding with the Lantern Festival on March 3 would be Taiwan’s most notable celestial event this year, the Taipei Astronomical Museum said, urging skywatchers not to miss it. There would be four eclipses worldwide this year — two solar eclipses and two lunar eclipses — the museum’s Web site says. Taiwan would be able to observe one of the lunar eclipses in its entirety on March 3. The eclipse would be visible as the moon rises at 5:50pm, already partly shaded by the Earth’s shadow, the museum said. It would peak at about 7:30pm, when the moon would
Taiwan’s Li Yu-hsiang performs in the men’s singles figure skating short program at the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, on Tuesday. Li finished 24th with a score of 72.41 to advance to Saturday’s free skate portion of the event. He is the first Taiwanese to qualify for the free skate of men’s singles figure skating at the Olympics since David Liu in 1992.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday held a ceremony marking the delivery of its 11th Anping-class offshore patrol vessel Lanyu (蘭嶼艦), saying it would boost Taiwan’s ability to respond to Beijing’s “gray zone” tactics. Ocean Affairs Council Deputy Minister Chang Chung-Lung (張忠龍) presided over the CGA event in the Port of Kaoshiung. Representatives of the National Security Council also attended the event. Designed for long-range and protracted patrol operations at sea, the Lanyu is a 65.4m-long and 14.8m-wide ship with a top speed of 44 knots (81.5kph) and a cruising range of 2,000 nautical miles (3704km). The vessel is equipped with a
Two siblings in their 70s were injured yesterday when they opened a parcel and it exploded, police in Yilan said, adding the brother and sister were both in stable condition. The two siblings, surnamed Hung (洪), had received the parcel two days earlier but did not open it until yesterday, the first day of the Lunar New Year holiday in Taiwan, police said. Chen Chin-cheng (陳金城), head of the Yilan County Government Police Bureau, said the package bore no postmark or names and was labeled only with the siblings’ address. Citing the findings of a
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