Government agrees to adjust weapons procurement budget

This article was written by Edward Chang and published by the Macroview Weekly on August 10, 2005. According to this article, the ROC government has agreed to adjust its budget appropriations for a long-stalled arms procurement package in order to facilitate its passage through the Legislative Yuan.

The Legislative Yuan is currently controled by Taiwan's opposition parties, which have kept two bills from being put on the legislative agenda. The first bill would authorize the government to prepare a special budget for a NT$480 billion arms procurement package over a period of 15 years. The second bill is about the government's budget appropriations for the package.

The government has now agreed to reconsider how much it will spend and what items it will buy. The Ministry of National Defense says it is now studying which item or items can be included in its annual budget plan, how much money is needed and how many years the budget plan should span. This means that the arms procurement package will be funded partly by the ministry's annual budget and partly by a special government budget.

The government has proposed that the national defense spending would reach three percent of Taiwan's Gross Domestic Product within three years.