Among the nation’s six special municipalities, Taipei cleared the largest amount of debt over the past year, while New Taipei City booked the largest increase in arrears, data published by the National Treasury Administration showed.
According to data compiled in June, Taipei cut its debt by NT$13.6 billion (US$430.8 million). It still has NT$126.7 billion in arrears.
The debt owed by New Taipei City rose from NT$113.8 billion to NT$129.8 billion, the biggest increase among the six municipalities.
Kaohsiung, which has the largest debt, booked an additional NT$4.9 billion in arrears, bringing the total to NT$258.9 billion.
It also has the highest amount of debt per capita, at NT$93,000, followed by Taipei’s NT$47,000.
Taoyuan, which cut its debt by NT$2.1 billion over the past year, owes NT$19.5 billion, making it the least indebted municipality, with the debt owed by every Taoyuan resident standing at NT$9,200.
The national debt was NT$6.06 trillion in June, Treasury data showed.
Despite the remarkable progress in cutting debt, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was not entirely satisfied with the results, saying he “had a lot to complain about.”
“I figured that it has been 18 months since I took office and we have not achieved much. Most of what we did was clearing debt left by the former administrations,” he said.
The mayor said that he hoped future generations would not need to inherit any debt.
“We should solve what we can solve in our generation,” he said, adding that the city would continue to repay as much debt as it could.
Asked what he thought about Yilan County being touted by the agency as the top-performing administrative district in terms of cutting debt over the past five years, Ko expressed disbelief.
He later attributed Yilan’s achievement to the Democratic Progressive Party winning two consecutive commissioner elections in the county.
National Treasury Administration section head Hsu Chen-wen (徐振文) said that Yilan and Miaoli are the only “overly deficient” administrative districts in the nation.
However, the agency lauded Yilan’s effort in cutting its arrears, as it managed to shave off NT$2.4 billion from its debt between 2012 and this year, Hsu said.
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