The Cabinet has achieved two of the three goals for the economy set by President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) — reducing unemployment and boosting economic growth — officials said yesterday.
However, Chen did not deliver on his vow, made in 2004, to raise overall expenditure on research and development-related sectors to more than 3 percent of GDP within three years, the officials said.
Council for Economic Planning and Development Chairwoman Ho Mei-yueh (何美玥) and Deputy Minister of National Science Council Wu Tsung-tsong (吳政忠) presented reports on the government’s performance over the past eight years at the Cabinet meeting yesterday.
Wu said overall expenditure on research and development-related sectors went up from 1.98 percent in 1999 to 2.58 percent in 2006.
“Although the government increased budgets earmarked for technology development each year, the growth rate was limited by the legislature. The proposed budget was cut by 8.7 percent in 2005 and another 7.9 percent in 2006,” Wu told a press conference following the meeting.
While seeking re-election in 2004, Chen vowed to expand the technology budget, to cut unemployment to below 4 percent within two years and to boost economic growth to above 5 percent in a year.
“The government’s pursuit of economic revitalization through a series of economic measures produced concrete results. The country has achieved stable economic growth. We saw a significant increase in private investment and a record high in foreign investment,” Chang said.
Chang said 909,000 jobs were created since the Democratic Progressive Party came to power in 2000. For its part, unemployment went down to 3.9 percent, a record low in the past seven years.
Of the jobs created, 665,000 were filled by women, bringing the labor force participation rate to 49.4 percent, a record high, Chang said.
The country’s average economic growth for the past seven years was 4.1 percent, with an average of 5.23 percent in the last four years — higher than South Korea’s 4.7 percent, Chang said.
Twenty-nine multinationals set up 36 research and development centers since 2002, with investment in Taiwan up to NT$33 billion (US$1.08 billion), Chang said.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
SPACE VETERAN: Kjell N. Lindgren, who helps lead NASA’s human spaceflight missions, has been on two expeditions on the ISS and has spent 311 days in space Taiwan-born US astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren is to visit Taiwan to promote technological partnerships through one of the programs organized by the US for its 250th national anniversary. Lindgren would be in Taiwan from Tuesday to Saturday next week as part of the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ US Speaker Program, organized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a statement yesterday. Lindgren plans to engage with key leaders across the nation “to advance cutting-edge technological partnerships and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,”
RSS