Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) yesterday expressed confidence that the nation’s unemployment rate would start dropping in September.
“Our [administrative] team, businesses and the public have been fighting the financial storm in the first half of this year,” Liu told reporters at the Executive Yuan yesterday.
“We remain confident [about the economy], although there remains a gap between the true economic prosperity we look forward to [and the current economic situation]. I believe everyone has had their confidence restored [in the economy],” Liu said.
Liu said recent statistics on exports and imports showed that the economy was recovering, adding that the unemployment rate could stop rising by September.
The unemployment rate hit 5.82 percent in May, with about 630,000 people unemployed.
Meanwhile, the Executive Yuan’s Research, Development and Evaluation Commission said in a survey that up to 55 percent of respondents supported the Cabinet’s decision to approve a number of mergers between cities and counties.
The Executive Yuan on June 29 passed the merger plan for Tainan City and Tainan County, following its approval of the upgrade of Taipei County to a municipal city and the mergers between Taichung City and Taichung County and Kaohsiung City and Kaohsiung County.
About 60 percent of respondents said they supported the merger between Kaohsiung City and Kaohsiung County, while 57 percent supported the merger of Taichung City and Taichung County.
The upgrade of Taipei County was favored by 48 percent of respondents, while 45 percent said they agreed to a merger between Tainan City and Tainan County.
Forty-nine percent of respondents said they believed the reorganization of cities and counties would have a positive impact on the nation’s future.
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm early yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, less than a week after a typhoon barreled across the nation. The agency issued an advisory at 3:30am stating that the 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, of the Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, with a 100km radius. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA
Residents have called on the Taipei City Government to reconsider its plan to demolish a four-decades-old pedestrian overpass near Daan Forest Park. The 42-year-old concrete and steel structure that serves as an elevated walkway over the intersection of Heping and Xinsheng roads is to be closed on Tuesday in preparation for demolition slated for completion by the end of the month. However, in recent days some local residents have been protesting the planned destruction of the intersection overpass that is rendered more poetically as “sky bridge” in Chinese. “This bridge carries the community’s collective memory,” said a man surnamed Chuang
FATALITIES: The storm claimed at least two lives — a female passenger in a truck that was struck by a falling tree and a man who was hit by a utility pole Workers cleared fallen trees and shop owners swept up debris yesterday after one of the biggest typhoons to hit the nation in decades claimed at least two lives. Typhoon Kong-rey was packing winds of 184kph when it slammed into eastern Taiwan on Thursday, uprooting trees, triggering floods and landslides, and knocking out power as it swept across the nation. A 56-year-old female foreign national died from her injuries after the small truck she was in was struck by a falling tree on Provincial Highway 14A early on Thursday. The second death was reported at 8pm in Taipei on Thursday after a 48-year-old man
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm earlier today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, in this year's Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am, the CWA said. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) with a 100km radius, it said. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA meteorologist Huang En-hung (黃恩宏) said. However, a more accurate forecast would be made on Wednesday, when Yinxing is
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