The Cabinet has announced a series of short term stimulus measures for boosting Taiwan’s lagging economy.
The government statistics office said Friday that Taiwan's gross domestic product (GDP) recorded a negative year-on-year growth of 1.01 percent in the third quarter of the year. That’s less than the government’s forecast of 0.1percent growth and is also the lowest growth of any quarter over the past six years. The major reasons for the negative figure are poor export performance and low levels of domestic spending.
On Friday, Premier Mao Chi-kuo announced stimulus measures designed to boost spending on energy and water-saving appliances, digital products, and domestic travel as well as e-commerce.
Mao said that the stimulus package will cost the government around US$123 million. The government hopes the package will add roughly US$41 million to the GDP. Mao said he also hopes that private businesses will develop plans to help boost domestic spending as well.
“An important part of these policies is to encourage people to spend, and we also hope that the government and the private sector will work together to achieve this result," said Mao. "We encourage companies to hold promotions and discounts to boost consumption to bring up the heat on year-end shopping.”
The premier said a similar measure taken in 2009 was not very effective because the public spent subsidies on everyday necessities. Mao said that this is why this time the government is limiting subsidies to specific categories of products.