Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislative candidates yesterday called for the National Child Care Policy for Ages 0-6 to be extended to “ages minus-one to six,” to includes subsidies and extended maternity leave for pregnant women.
The legislative candidates held a news conference in Taipei to unveil their campaign platform, which includes increased subsidies, pre- and post-birth psychiatric consultations and extended paid pregnancy leave to encourage young people to have children.
Current policies on alleviating sub-replacement fertility and the low birthrate are focused on giving birth and raising children, KMT legislative candidate Lee Yen-hsiu (李彥秀) said.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
However, they fail to provide an incentive for young people to have children, Lee said.
She proposed that care for women who are planning to become mothers be extended to the pregnancy phase, touting the slogan: “The state raises your minus-one to six-year-old child.”
She said that women who have been pregnant for three months should receive a monthly stipend of NT$8,000 until the child is born, and said that she would push to extend paid pregnancy leave from eight weeks to 14, with the additional six weeks to be funded by the government.
KMT legislative candidate Lee Min-hsuan (李明璇) said that the government should provide NT$10,000 pre- and post-birth consultation subsidies to help ensure that the mother, child and family are stable.
The government should “reward” hospitals that have purchased equipment or conducted research that would help pregnant women who are of advanced maternal age or hospitals that provide cross-department care for mothers with high-risk pregnancies, she said.
She also said that Taiwan should emulate the UK and establish regulations to reduce the wage gap.
KMT legislator-at-large candidate Chen Ching-huy (陳菁徽) said the government should provide pregnant mothers with a one-time anomaly scan, or a level II ultrasound, to ensure preventive treatment for congenital anomalies.
The government should also increase the subsidy for those who have fertility issues and are attempting for a second time to have a child from NT$60,000 to NT$80,000, she said.
Women aged 30 to 40 who want to freeze their eggs should be subsidized, she said, adding that they should receive NT$20,000 for the first year, which would drop to NT$2,000 for each of the next five years.
KMT legislative candidate Huang Chien-hao (黃健豪) proposed increasing birth subsidies to NT$50,000 for the first child, NT$65,000 for the second and NT$80,000 for the third.
Families with children that do not own their own home should be given priority for renting social welfare housing, and be given a subsidy of NT$5,000 per month until their child’s sixth birthday, Huang said.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS