Council calls for bridging wealth gap

This article was published by the Microview Weekly on August 8, 2007. It reports that the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) in Taiwan recently suggested that Taiwan should learn from the experience of Japan and stimulate regional industry in a bid to bridge the wealth gap between urban and rural areas.

According to council officials, on a scale of one to five in terms of national income, Taiwan's highest income group earns 6.04-fold that of the lowest income group on average. This is lower than the figures in the United States, Hong Kong and South Korea.

Figures released by the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics show that the highest income group in Singapore earns 20.91-fold that of the lowest income group on average, compared to 17.66-fold in Hong Kong, 9.6-fold in the United States, 7.21-fold in Great Britain and 6.84-fold in South Korea.

But Taiwan's figure is still high compared to the 4.98-fold in Japan, 4.02-fold in Sweden, 3.88-fold in Norway and 3.82-fold in Finland.

Council officials noted that Japan, in a bid to narrow the gap between rich and poor, has continued to promote balanced development of rural and urban areas in recent years and has achieved substantial results.

In Japan, to-notch universities, research institutes and business groups that are capable of creating new industry work together to form an emerging industry cluster.