Stable electricity prices are important to Taiwan’s industrial base, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said today, defending the special budget’s NT$100 billion (US$3.11 billion) subsidy for Taiwan Power Co (Taipower).
On Thursday last week, the Executive Yuan passed a NT$410 billion special budget seeking to comprehensively respond to US tariffs and increase the country’s economic, social and security resilience.
Yesterday, Cho met with the legislative caucuses of all three major political parties to rally support for the NT$410 billion special budget, but faced pushback from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) regarding the Taipower subsidy.
Photo: Lo Pei-te, Taipei Times
Prior to a Legislative Yuan meeting today, Cho thanked lawmakers for their time at the previous day’s meeting and answered questions about the special budget.
Cho and President William Lai (賴清德) have heard from industry leaders that stable electricity prices are a major concern, the premier said, adding that companies are seeking to avoid the “double shock” of tariffs and rising electricity rates.
The NT$100 billion subsidy would help Taipower deal with mounting losses — which reached NT$420 billion as of the end of last year — to enable the utility to consider social welfare and stability as part of its rate discussions, Cho said.
Hopefully, the opposition parties can understand industry’s concerns, he added.
The special budget is divided into three parts: national security, social welfare measures, and economic support for industry and employment.
The budget allocates funds to help vulnerable groups who would be negatively affected by the ongoing global economic situation, subsidies for low-income households and to repair aging homes, he said.
Cho said he hopes opposition parties can see that the special budget responds to the needs of industry, offers benefits for disadvantaged groups and would improve the country’s competitiveness.
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
CPBL players, cheerleaders and officials pose at a news conference in Taipei yesterday announcing the upcoming All-Star Game. This year’s CPBL All-Star Weekend is to be held at the Taipei Dome on July 19 and 20.
The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled in favor of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) regarding the legitimacy of her doctoral degree. The issue surrounding Tsai’s academic credentials was raised by former political talk show host Dennis Peng (彭文正) in a Facebook post in June 2019, when Tsai was seeking re-election. Peng has repeatedly accused Tsai of never completing her doctoral dissertation to get a doctoral degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1984. He subsequently filed a declaratory action charging that
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a
RSS