On the morning of October 3 at the Presidential Office, President Ma Ying-jeou held the second in a series of press conferences to explain his "golden decade" vision for the nation. The president explained how the fruits of economic development should be shared by the entire public in order to achieve a "just society." At the same time, he pointed out that "carrying out reform to achieve clean government" along with "boosting efficiency" will serve as two key pillars in the effort to establish a "clean and competent government" and bring about a better nation.
The following are the remarks made by the president:
The government last Thursday [September 29] announced its comprehensive "Golden Decade, National Vision" blueprint. During that press conference, I discussed the content of the "robust economy" portion of the plan. The "Golden Decade, National Vision" blueprint has eight visions, namely a robust economy, a just society, clean and competent government, high-quality education, environmental sustainability, well-rounded development, cross-strait peace, and friendly relations with the international community. Today, I want to report to everyone on the content of the second vision, "a just society," and the third vision, "clean and competent government."
In introducing the "robust economy" vision, we especially stressed that all effective measures will be adopted to revitalize the economy. However, how to ensure that the fruits created by this growth are shared by the entire public in order to achieve a "just society" is also a very important task.
First, I hope that economic development will drive growth in salaries and generate jobs for low-income households. I also hope to implement new social support systems in which the poverty line is raised. This will enable more people to receive assistance from the government. The objective is to reduce the gap between rich and poor. The government hopes to maintain the ROC's current status as one of the East Asian nations with the smallest wealth gap.
Second, starting from July of next year, the second-generation national health insurance system will be put into operation. An important objective of this new system is to ensure that people can seek medical care free from fear or worry. At the same time, we will seek improvement in a number of public health indicators. For instance, we want to reduce the percentage of smokers in the total population to 15% within five years, and to 10% in 10 years. We also want to reduce the cancer mortality rate by 10% within five years, and by 20% in 10 years, which is quite an ambitious goal. In addition, one of the top 10 causes of death is traffic accidents. We hope to reduce the number of deaths from traffic accidents by 10% within five years, and by 20% in 10 years. We also want to reduce the crime rate by 8% within five years and by 11% in 10 years. Having set forth these objectives, we will not only take action to try and reach them, but will also consider ways to achieve them even more quickly, and then even exceed those targets. As we see progress, we will immediately revise these indicators.
To realize the principle of "residential justice," the government will continue to increase the supply of housing and combat short-term speculation in the real estate market. The efforts to combat speculation will in part be achieved through the recent introduction of the luxury tax, restrictions on speculative transactions, and thorough investigation into transactions made using nominees. These measures, however, are not enough, as they are reactive in nature. We must take a proactive approach by adding to the supply of housing. The government has been extremely successful with its housing assistance program for newlyweds and young parents, and in the future will continue to expand this program. In addition, reasonably priced for-sale and rental housing will begin to be formally introduced in the next year or two. Also, not long ago we announced the introduction of a system in which the actual prices of real estate transactions must be made public, which will facilitate plans to gradually implement a tax system based on the actual price of real estate transactions.
A fair and transparent transaction system for real estate dealings will be established. Meanwhile, the government is examining the compensation paid in the event of land expropriation, and will not lightly exercise the power of eminent domain. In the event that land is needed for infrastructure projects or for the public interest, compensation will be negotiated and be based on market prices.
In addition, I also hope that Taiwan will see a higher birth rate, especially among younger couples. I hope that within the next 10 years we will see no fewer than 180,000 newborns each year, as compared with the current annual total of 160,000. As you can see, we still need to increase the amount of newborns from the current level. This will be important in offsetting the aging of the population.
A "just society" is one that exhibits a high degree of equality and a lack of prejudice. Consequently, in an effort to promote ethnic harmony, an important initiative in the future will be to operate "experimental third-semester ethnic schools." This is an extremely important policy made by the Council of Indigenous Peoples. Our plan calls for the establishment of 15 such schools within five years and 30 schools in 10 years. In addition, the government will provide lower-middle income households and the underprivileged with housing subsidies to balance supply and demand for housing in urban areas in an effort to realize residential justice.
In the area of gender equality, within one year all of Taiwan's 19 academic medical centers will establish a special one-stop service for women seeking medical care, which will guarantee privacy and gradually lead to the introduction of integrated medical treatment for women. This initiative will be expanded to all public hospitals within five years and to all hospitals in Taiwan over the coming 10 years, thus ensuring that women will have privacy and enjoy the latest technology when they seek medical care. We will aim to institute these measures as quickly as possible. If we want to achieve these goals in less than five years, we must accelerate our efforts.
Another of my visions focuses on establishing "clean and competent government." In order to achieve that, we need to reform our government and boost its efficiency. In other words, our government must abide by ethical guidelines and display a high level of efficiency.
We have made every effort to realize the ideal of clean government in the three-plus years of my administration. Over this period, Taiwan's ranking in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index first moved to 37th position from 39th, and then further upward to 33rd. The ROC's ranking has thus improved for two consecutive years and we hope that it continues to do so in the future. At the same time, Taiwan ranks sixth in the latest World Competitiveness Yearbook released by Switzerland's International Institute for Management Development, our best ranking ever. We hope that we can continue to maintain this level and improve even further. In July of this year we established the Agency Against Corruption, which will be the most important force in our government ethics work. Over the next decade, we will continue with existing measures in the fight against corruption. We will carry out this work with the objective of achieving the "four nos" with respect to public servants, whereby they will: 1) have no desire to be corrupt; 2) have no need to be corrupt; 3) have no opportunity to be corrupt; and 4) won't dare to be corrupt. This will help to gradually establish a broader foundation for a clean society.
I want to stress that over the course of our history, some people have seen their human rights compromised, and even completely trampled upon. However, that is all behind us. We have established the Presidential Office Human Rights Consultative Committee and I have also signed the instruments of ratification for two human rights covenants of the United Nations (UN). Consequently, in February of next year we will for the first time issue a national human rights report in accordance with a system adopted by the UN. I will ask Vice President Vincent C. Siew, who chairs the committee, to carry out the final review of the document. This report will not only examine the degree to which the two UN human rights covenants have been put in practice by all government agencies, but will also point out areas where shortcomings exist and immediate improvements are needed. This will ensure that we are in step with the rest of the world in the promotion of human rights. Most importantly, we want to ensure that our human rights standards meet or even exceed those of the rest of the world. We are fully confident that we will be able to achieve this.
In terms of judicial reform, the nature of judicial organizations sometimes gives the impression to the public that persons working in these agencies are bureaucrats more than anything. Therefore, judicial organizations need to transform themselves. At the same time, the Judicial Yuan in the future will begin promoting an "advisory jury system," enabling professional judges and non-specialized members of the public to jointly engage in the hearing of trials. It is hoped that this initiative will enable professional judges to better understand the public's reasonable expectations of the judicial system. Even though members of the public cannot participate in the writing of judgments, they will be able to offer suggestions. If judges do not accept lay opinions, they will be required to explain their reasons. This means that judges will, to a certain degree, be subject to public scrutiny. I am confident that this will enhance the credibility of our judicial process. We are discussing this from the aspect of promoting a clean government, which means I cannot address now all of the initiatives we intend to undertake in judicial reform. Hopefully at the end of this month, we will re-examine this issue when the Judicial Yuan furnishes a plan that focuses on judicial reform.
Under the traditional criminal law system, judgments result in penalties, and sometimes even jail sentences, which creates a feeling that the law can lack compassion, so we hope to establish "judicial protection centers." Under this initiative, a dedicated counter will be established at each district prosecutors office to handle any grievances that members of the public might have as cases proceed through the judicial system. Specialists working at these counters will provide explanations to the public, helping to alleviate their concerns. In addition, we will also seek restorative justice and work to settle differences between perpetrators and their victims. In the past we allowed for conflict between the two parties, but that needs to change. We hope to provide the opportunity for them to communicate, and for the perpetrator to apologize to the victim, as well as for the perpetrator to make amends with the victim to help the latter achieve peace. This is the direction that we sought to pursue in the past in the formation of the Crime Victim Protection Act, and we hope that we can gradually realize this vision.
Another focus of our work will be on enhancing administrative efficiency. Without a doubt, administrative efficiency has been boosted over the past decade. However, in this new century, the public has even greater expectations. As a result, we hope that efforts to achieve "enhanced efficiency" will boost the government's performance. The first thing we will do is to reorganize the central government. Under this initiative, the number of government ministries and agencies will be reduced to 29 from the current 37. A reduction in the number of agencies alone, however, does not necessarily improve efficiency. Five bills for organic reform of the Executive Yuan have all been passed, and the new system will take effect on January 1 of next year. Government ministries and agencies will gradually become involved in the establishment of new agencies. We hope to use a minimum of resources to achieve maximum efficiency.
Meanwhile, with regard to changes in administrative procedures, there is something that I think is extremely important. When I visited various localities, many people told me that they need to get all sorts of approval stamps from various agencies to receive a permit. In some cases, one permit might require several hundred people having to sign off on it. I asked the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission (RDEC) to thoroughly examine this problem, and the RDEC adopted a goal of reducing the number of approval seals required by 20% within five years, and 30% within 10 years. If we can further improve on these numbers, then we will do it. We want to streamline procedures as much as possible and reduce the amount of time required. This will help enhance administrative efficiency, and will also be an important factor deciding whether our economic development can reach new heights.
Today's report has focused on two visions—achievement of a "just society" and "clean and competent government." I hope that everyone will provide us with your suggestions regarding these two undertakings.
Among the government officials attending the press conference were Vice President Vincent C. Siew, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義), Secretary-General to the President Wu Jin-lin (伍錦霖), Deputy Secretary-General to the President Kao Lang (高朗), Minister of the Interior Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺), Minister of Justice Tseng Yung-fu (曾勇夫), Council for Economic Planning and Development Minister Christina Y. Liu (劉憶如), Government Information Office Minister Philip Y.M. Yang (楊永明), Department of Health Minister Chiu Wen-Ta (邱文達), Council for Hakka Affairs Minister Huang Yu-Cheng (黃玉振), Council of Indigenous Peoples Minister Sun Ta-chuan (孫大川), and Research, Development and Evaluation Commission Deputy Minister Sung Yu-Hsieh (宋餘俠).