Top exporter Taiwan outlined measures on Thursday to help its economy through a global slowdown, promising to boost exports and domestic consumption in a sign that Europe's debt crisis and a faltering US recovery is worrying Asia's policymakers.
The government said it would monitor the impact of the slowdown at weekly high-level meetings, while looking to stabilise financial markets, monitor inflation, review M&A rules, increase infrastructure projects, cut tariffs and pay "special attention" to hi-tech industries such as flat panels.
But the plans contained little in the way of specifics, and the government may have wanted to make a demonstration that it is on top of things, especially with a tightly contested presidential and legislature election looming. "We are waiting for more specifics from the government," said Forest Chen, economist at Taishin Securities.
The announcements at a briefing by Vice-Premier Sean Chen, economic planning minister Christina Liu and other officials, came just after data showed the island's manufacturing sector had contracted in November for a sixth straight month as exporters felt the chill of the global slowdown.