If the construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮) is scrapped due to widespread opposition, the state-owned Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) will run into operating difficulties and could face bankruptcy, Taipower spokesman Roger Lee (李鴻洲) said.
Lee said that according to accounting regulations, only expenses that bring in revenue can be listed as assets.
If the nearly completed plant is scrapped, it will not be possible for it to run and provide electricity, and the money spent would then be listed as a one-time loss.
Lee said that the total budget for the plant is NT$283.8 billion (US$9.37 billion), NT$270 billion of which has been spent, but has yet to be listed in the company’s financial statements.
This, coupled with the company’s accumulated losses of NT$208.4 billion as of the end of last year, will mean that the total losses will have surpassed the company’s paid-in capital of NT$330 billion.
Under the terms of the Accounting Act (會計法), the company could then face bankruptcy.
Article 211 of the Company Act (公司法) stipulates that “in case the assets of a company are insufficient to set off its liabilities, the board of directors shall apply to the court for pronouncement of bankruptcy.”
He said that the scrapping of the plant would have a major impact on the company’s financial situation and trigger a domino effect.
Not only will the company have its credit rating adjusted downward, it will face tightened liquidity by the banks, he said.
If the company has a cash flow problem, contractors and suppliers could suspend their work and the company could also have difficulty purchasing fuel needed to operate its existing power plants, which could affect normal electricity supplies, he said.
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
A Taiwanese woman on Sunday was injured by a small piece of masonry that fell from the dome of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican during a visit to the church. The tourist, identified as Hsu Yun-chen (許芸禎), was struck on the forehead while she and her tour group were near Michelangelo’s sculpture Pieta. Hsu was rushed to a hospital, the group’s guide to the church, Fu Jing, said yesterday. Hsu was found not to have serious injuries and was able to continue her tour as scheduled, Fu added. Mathew Lee (李世明), Taiwan’s recently retired ambassador to the Holy See, said he met
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
A BETRAYAL? It is none of the ministry’s business if those entertainers love China, but ‘you cannot agree to wipe out your own country,’ the MAC minister said Taiwanese entertainers in China would have their Taiwanese citizenship revoked if they are holding Chinese citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. Several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑) and Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜), earlier this month on their Weibo (微博) accounts shared a picture saying that Taiwan would be “returned” to China, with tags such as “Taiwan, Province of China” or “Adhere to the ‘one China’ principle.” The MAC would investigate whether those Taiwanese entertainers have Chinese IDs and added that it would revoke their Taiwanese citizenship if they did, Chiu told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper
RSS