The country must upgrade its competitiveness and boost domestic demand to prevent the economy from plunging into a slump, Vice President Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) said yesterday.
Over the past seven or eight years, the economy has focused on China and Southeast Asia, whose end market was in the US and Europe, he said. While the US economy is in dire straits, Taiwan cannot depend on exports to drive its economic growth, he said.
This means the government must adjust its economic policy, he said. One solution would be to boost domestic demand; another would be to elevate the nation’s competitiveness, Siew said while meeting members of the Association of Chain and Franchise Promotion, Taiwan at the Presidential Office yesterday morning.
He said the country would sail through the difficult economic situation as it did the Asian Financial Crisis a decade ago if the government could boost domestic demand and upgrade competitiveness.
Meanwhile, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said the US need not worry about “unilateral changes of the ‘status quo’ by the Taiwan government.”
Cross-strait relations have entered a new era of stability, peace and prosperity, he said. Chinese President Hu Jintao’s (胡錦濤) “understanding” of the “1992 consensus” had had a significant impact on cross-strait developments, he said.
As cross-strait relations improve, the US and Japan do not need to worry about a war in the Strait and they can focus their attention on strengthening ties with Taipei on other issues.
If the development of cross-strait relations follows the path his government has planned, peace and stability would be sustained, he said, adding that when that day comes, the US and Japan could develop sound relationships with Taiwan without having to choose sides in the case of a military conflict.
Ma said he understood peace and stability did not happen overnight, but was confident that his government could make it happen.
Also see: 標題
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS