Echoing the grievances of a number of businesses, lawmakers yesterday called on President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration to stop burdening small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with high land leasing fees and property transaction charges.
After receiving complaints by several SMEs in industrial zones in central and southern Taiwan, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lin Tai-hua (林岱樺) from Greater Kaohsiung accused the government of financially “squeezing” businesses.
“The treasury is depleted, so the Ma administration tries to extract money from workers. Is it now turning to extort money from small and medium enterprises?” Lin asked.
DPP Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) from Greater Tainan said that in the past decade, when faced with firms moving to China and Southeast Asian countries, the government had enacted an incentive measure for preferential land leasing rates in industrial zones in an effort to retain businesses.
‘These days, the government is swindling these companies, trying to extract more payment from them. The Industrial Development Bureau [IDB] has been oblivious to the many complaints from the suffering companies,” Chen said.
“Now with this situation and economy in stagnation ... we can see straight through Ma’s National Day address. He spoke about how industries must head toward higher value-added development. His words are nothing but lies and sloganeering,” she added.
The bureau recently sent out notices to more than 900 SMEs in 18 designated industrial parks, informing them that when they change their property lease or enter into a new land transaction, the businesses must now follow the current market valuation and not the price on the original contracts.
It involves the incentive proposition “Measure for Reinforcing the Adjustment of Preferential Rental Fees for Land in Industrial Zones,” also known as the “006688” measure. The proposition came into force on May 1, 2002.
The measure exempts companies from land lease fees during the first two years, seeks payment of 60 percent of full lease fees during the third and fourth years, 80 percent of full lease fees during the fifth and sixth years and the full payment of lease fees in the seventh year. The term limit for land leases is 20 years.
If the company applies to purchase the land before the lease period has expired, the guarantee deposit and lease fees already paid during the lease period may be subtracted from the original price of the contract. In this way the company is effectively exempted from lease fees during the lease period, according to information from the IDB.
DPP Legislator Lin Tai-hua (林岱樺) said that all the companies in the industrial zones had a common understanding that their signed original land contracts had been verified by the judiciary.
“But now the government’s executive branch is abusing their power to ‘play word games’ and ‘imposing their own definition,’ and so this is illegal and breaks binding contracts,” she said.
Lin accused the Ma administration of deceiving the public.
IDB chief secretary Chiu Chiu-hui (邱求慧) said the agency would find a fair and legal solution that is acceptable to all the companies involved.
An alleged US government plan to encourage Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) to form a joint venture with Intel to boost US chipmaking would place the Taiwanese foundry giant in a more disadvantageous position than proposed tariffs on imported chips, a semiconductor expert said yesterday. If TSMC forms a joint venture with its US rival, it faces the risk of technology outflow, said Liu Pei-chen (劉佩真), a researcher at the Taiwan Industry Economics Database of the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research. A report by international financial services firm Baird said that Asia semiconductor supply chain talks suggest that the US government would
Starlux Airlines on Tuesday announced it is to launch new direct flights from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport to Ontario, California, on June 2. The carrier said it plans to deploy the new-generation Airbus A350 on the Taipei-Ontario route. The Airbus A350 features a total of 306 seats, including four in first class, 26 in business class, 36 in premium economy and 240 in economy. According to Starlux’s initial schedule, four flights would run between Taoyuan and Ontario per week: Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Flights are to depart from Taoyuan at 8:05pm and arrive in California at 5:05pm (local time), while return flights
Nearly 800 Indian tourists are to arrive this week on an incentive tour organized by Indian company Asian Painted Ltd, making it the largest tour group from the South Asian nation to visit since the COVID-19 pandemic. The travelers are scheduled to arrive in six batches from Sunday to Feb. 25 for five-day tours, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. The tour would take the travelers, most of whom are visiting Taiwan for the first time, to several tourist sites in Taipei and Yilan County, including tea houses in Taipei’s Maokong (貓空), Dadaocheng (大稻埕) and Ximending (西門町) areas. They would also visit
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the