Seven cases of suspected price speculation have been uncovered since a task force to clamp down on such crimes was created on Nov. 5, Deputy Minister of Justice Lee Chin-yung (李進勇) said yesterday.
Lee, Cabinet Spokesman Shieh Jhy-wey (謝志偉) and Council for Economic Planning and Development Chairperson Ho Mei-yueh (何美玥) announced new measures to combat commodity speculation at a press conference held after the Cabinet's second weekly meeting on managing commodity prices.
National Policy Agency personnel made 6,000 trips to inspect 1,828 places where 2,909 people were questioned about commodity prices over the past week, Hsieh said.
Several cases of suspected price manipulation had been forwarded to prosecutors for further investigation, he said.
Of the nine cases under investigation by prosecutors, seven people had been listed as defendants and two locations had been searched, Lee said.
He refused to discuss the alleged irregularities, except to say the cases included a person accused of hoarding 6,542 barrels of cooking oil in Taichung City, a Yunlin County company that had 500 tonnes of peanuts, and an unregistered business selling oil in Hualien County that had 14,000 liters of diesel and oil storage facilities.
"We will continue our efforts to clamp down on profiteering and the hoarding of essential commodities," Lee said.
Meanwhile, Ho said that the wholesale price changes on several major commodities had remained relatively stable over the past week except for soybeans and feed corn.
The wholesale price of soybeans was up 1.82 percent compared to a week ago, corn for feed had increased 2.19 percent and the price of wheat was up 0.25 percent, while the price of flour, cooking oil and milk powder were unchanged, Ho said.
She said the Cabinet had approved a Council of Agriculture proposal to encourage local production of feed corn, under which farmers who grow feed corn in fallow rice paddies would receive a subsidy of NT$45,000 per hectare.
That subsidy will be given on top of the NT$45,000 farmers receive for each hectare of field left fallow for one planting season.
One-quarter, or 220,000 hectares, of rice paddy fields are now fallow, which Ho said would produce one-tenth of the feed corn imported in a year.
Ho said the wholesale price of rice rose by 2.01 percent, fruit prices were up 0.9 percent, the price of hogs rose 0.2 percent, the price of vegetables fell 5 percent and the price of eggs dropped 3.3 percent.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS