The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday that on the eve of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 100th day in office, Ma’s contention that close economic exchanges with China would improve the domestic economy had been proven wrong.
Chuang Suo-hang (莊碩漢), director of the DPP’s Policy Research Committee, told a press conference that while the former DPP government had managed to keep Consumer Price Index (CPI) growth at about 1 percent, the CPI had been out of control since Ma came to power, reaching 5.92 percent in June.
He said the Core Consumer Price Index had also gone up more than 10 percent during the same month.
PHOTO: CHIEN JUNG-FONG, TAIPEI TIMES
Statistics show that more than 9,000 factory workers lost their jobs in June, meaning 9,000 families were suffering increased hardship, Chuang said.
Chuang said Ma had broken his campaign pledge to improve the economy if he was elected.
Ma believed that opening the country’s economy to China would boost the economy, but his China-leaning policies have not only failed to profit the country, they have also created a crisis over sovereignty and national security, he said.
Department of Culture and Information Director Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) said “Ma’s 100 days in office were not a golden 100 days, but a 100 days of recession.”
He said the misery index had reached 9.98 in June, the highest figure since 1981, adding that while the government has attributed rising consumer prices to high oil prices, the CPI has not climbed down since oil prices dropped.
Cheng said the stock market had plummeted by 2,348 points over the three months, with total stock value dropping by NT$5.74 trillion (US$1.81 billion), adding that the index had lost as much as 25 percent of its value within three months.
He said that wage growth rate had also fallen to 4.1 percent, the lowest in 28 years.
As the general public has suffered much hardship during these three months, he said the DPP was calling on the population to stand up and protest the poor economic policies of the Ma administration during a demonstration on Saturday.
In related news, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said yesterday it would not hold any event to counter the rally on Saturday.
KMT Culture and Communication Committee head Lee Chien-rong (李建榮) said the party respected the people’s right to assembly and that the appropriate procedures had been followed by the organizers.
As the governing party, Lee said the KMT would not make the same mistakes the DPP committed during its eight years in power by holding numerous rallies to disturb public order. The KMT will focus its efforts on improving the economy, rather than gathering supporters to confront the DPP and its supporters.
At a separate setting yesterday, Development and Evaluation Commission Minister Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) told reporters that the Government Information Office would make public a report today on the Ma administration’s performance to mark its first 100 days in office.
Jiang said the report would include policies implemented by the government and its vision for the country’s future.
In line with the government’s energy-saving campaign, the report will only be released online.
Meanwhile, Jiang said speeding up a draft statute aimed at streamlining the executive branch of the government was high on the government’s list of priorities for the latter half of this year.
Jiang said his commission would make an amendment to the Executive Yuan Organization Statute (行政院組織法), which would cut the number of agencies under the Executive Yuan from 36 to 26.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY MO YAN-CHIH
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