Taiwan Brain Trust yesterday accused the government of manipulating economic figures to deceive the public, saying that the state of the nation’s economy was not as good as it claimed.
“The impressive numbers released by the government cannot hide the fact that Taiwan is still in a difficult economic situation,” former vice premier Wu Rong-i (吳榮義), who is chairman of the think tank, told an economic forum.
Referring to last year’s ostensibly impressive economic growth of 9.98 percent, Wu said it was important to keep in mind that this comes from a low comparison base the previous year, when the economy contracted by 2.5 percent.
Although the unemployment rate has dropped from a peak of 6.13 percent to 4.73 percent in November, this does not include an estimated 150,000 unemployed people who are not actively looking for a job, he said.
The administration also boasts that salary levels have increased, but 3.6 million workers still have a monthly salary of less than NT$30,000, Wu said.
Government officials say the nation’s finances are healthy, but they do not appear to be telling the truth, he said.
Last year, public debt — not including potential debt and short-term government deficits — represented 32.9 percent of GDP, he said.
“If you include then, Taiwan’s public debt has reached 147 percent [of GDP], which is not healthy at all,” he said.
Chen Jinji (陳錦稷), a research fellow at Taiwan Brain Trust, said the nation’s financial situation remained in dire straits, adding that the Control Yuan had reprimanded the Ministry of Finance for underestimating the magnitude of public debt and ordered better regulations on government budgets.
Every time the administration borrows money for special budgets, the amount is not included in calculating public debt, he said.
“The administration should tackle this deficit with courage and map out a medium and long-term policy to deal with it,” he said.
Taiwan Thinktank chairman Chen Po-chih (陳博志) said that while it was understandable that a government would massage numbers to create a sense of optimism, it was unforgivable for a government to set policies based on erroneous figures.
“Statistics do not lie, but a liar knows how to manipulate statistics,” he said. “I hope the administration will admit its mistakes and that the public will not fall into the trap set by the government.”
He said his calculations, which were based on official data, showed the administration had overestimated the national income by NT$1.14 trillion (US$39.18 billion) and that such growth was generated at the cost of debt and deficits.
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
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 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
IN FULL SWING: Recall drives against lawmakers in Hualien, Taoyuan and Hsinchu have reached the second-stage threshold, the campaigners said Campaigners in a recall petition against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) in Taichung yesterday said their signature target is within sight, and that they need a big push to collect about 500 more signatures from locals to reach the second-stage threshold. Recall campaigns against KMT lawmakers Johnny Chiang (江啟臣), Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔) and Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) are also close to the 10 percent threshold, and campaigners are mounting a final push this week. They need about 800 signatures against Chiang and about 2,000 against Yang. Campaigners seeking to recall Lo said they had reached the threshold figure over the
RSS