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Premier Liu Sets Deadline for Execution of Public Construction Projects

2008/09/10 | By Philip Liu

Taipei, Sept. 10, 2008 (CENS)--To boost the domestic demand, Premier Liu Chao-shiuan instructed yesterday (Sept. 9) that on top of the NT$58.3 billion budget for the program expanding domestic demand, major construction projects of the central and municipal governments with budgets totaling NT$140 billion should also start to be executed by the end of the this year.

At a meeting with 25 municipality chiefs, Liu also asked the Public Construction Commission (PCC), the Executive Yuan (the Cabinet), to organize a cross-ministry task force helping central-government agencies and municipal governments overcome problems concerning the settlement of public biddings for those projects.

PCC officials immediately contacted municipal governments over the issue and are reportedly considering putting the priority on smaller projects budgeted under NT$50 million, so as to boost the execution rate for those projects to at least 80% by year end, up from the existing expectation of 50%.

Fan Liang-shiow, PCC minister, attributed the lagged execution of public construction projects to soaring material prices, which have dampened the willingness among contractors to take part in public biddings for those projects, due to the insufficient budgets.

Fan, though, noted that thanks to the policy of the new administration fully subsidizing contractors for the increased material costs, public biddings for public construction projects totaling NT$152.7 billion in scale have been settled after the inauguration of President Ma, 73% higher than the scale in the first four months this year.

Of the unsettled public construction projects totaling NT$140 billion in scale, many are major projects, such as the mass rapid transit system linking Taoyuan International Airport, the highway system for the Taichung life cycle, the expansion of Wanta power plant, and the common facilities for Taipei mass transit station and Taipei railway station. To break the deadlock, Fan said that the PCC is considering holding international biddings for those projects.