By Flora Wang
Staff Reporter
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) held an extraordinary meeting with Cabinet officials at the Presidential Office last night to discuss the recent slide in the stock market.
Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) told a press conference later that the Cabinet had briefed the president about the nation’s economic problems — including last week’s drop in the stock market and rising commodity prices — as well as proposals to tackle the situation.
Central bank Governor Perng Fai-nan (彭淮南) reported on the bank’s moves to stabilize commodity prices, while Minister of Economic Affairs Yiin Chii-ming (尹啟銘) briefed the president on the ministry’s response to rising utility and gasoline prices, Wang said.
The president praised the Cabinet and the central bank for the measures they had taken to rein in soaring prices, Wang said.
“The president believes that the recent rises in commodity prices result from the nation’s dependence on imported energy, but that Taiwan’s situation remains basically healthy,” Wang said.
Yesterday’s was the first meeting convened by the president on the matter.
The Executive Yuan has drawn up plans to increase the number of middle and low-income households that receive utility bill cuts, Wang said, and the Ministry of Economic Affairs will present “unprecedented” incentives today to encourage households to conserve electricity.
“The president acknowledged the Cabinet’s measures and urged members of the Cabinet to sympathize with the public and take care of those who cannot handle rising commodity prices,” Wang said.
Similar meetings with the president will be held at intervals, he said.
A Cabinet-level task force met on Saturday to discuss revitalizing the stock market after Friday’s nosedive to a five-month low.
The task force resolved to encourage domestic insurance companies — which control an estimated NT$8 trillion (US$262.7 billion) in capital — to invest in the stock market and the “i-Taiwan” 12 infrastructure projects.
Meanwhile, Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) inspected the Kaohsiung International Airport yesterday ahead of the launching of cross-strait charter flights.
When approached for comment, Liu declined to reveal details of the task force’s proposals, saying only that the team would do the right thing at the right time.
The premier said he should refrain from making comments that could affect the stock market.
During the trip, Liu was criticized by Kaohsiung-area Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators, who complained that only one charter flight from China would arrive in Kaohsiung on Friday, the first day of the flights.
“Kaohsiung residents could not help but shed tears when they found out the direct charter flight schedule for July 4,” KMT Legislator Ho Tsai-feng (侯彩鳳) told Liu.
KMT Legislator Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順) told Liu “everyone seemed uninterested in Kaohsiung International Airport” when the schedule was made.
“[The schedule] was not something the central government could control. It had to do with the market on the one hand and with whether local governments made enough of an effort on the other,” Liu said.
Four Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government chiefs from the south protested on Friday against the schedule, including Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊), who said the schedule was unfair to the south.
Also See: EDITORIAL: The economy can't afford missteps
Also See: Government urges buying local stocks
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS