Taiwan's parliament on Friday approved its budget for 2007, with plans to spend T$1.6294 trillion ($49.2 billion) for the year, ending a six-month stand-off. Passage of the budget came nearly halfway into the year the latest ever following squabbles and the occasional brawl involving members of Taiwan's two major political factions over unrelated legislation.
The parliament reduced the expenditure from the cabinet's originally proposed 1.6638 trillion Taiwanese dollars, but also revised down revenues to T$1.4871 trillion from T$1.5117 trillion, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party said.
That yields a fiscal shortfall of T$142.3 billion for 2007 compared with an originally proposed T$152.1 billion and a shortfall of T$187.1 billion in 2006.
The parliament's spending plan compares with government spending of T$1.5717 trillion in 2006 and government revenues of T$1.3846 trillion for that year.