By Sean Lin / Staff reporterSome items in the Cabinet’s NT$60 billion (US$1.99 billion) special budget to bail out sectors affected by COVID-19 are unnecessary, while others need to be better planned, New Power Party (NPP) Legislator Claire Wang (王婉諭) said yesterday. At least 25,000 restaurants and eateries nationwide already use food-delivery companies, while about 63 percent of retailers have already embraced e-commerce, she said. Stores and retailers should be allowed to engage in fair competition in a free market, and efforts to help digitize their services should be funded by the general budget, not a special budget, she added. Shen said that the proposal included in the special budget would be an improvement over the existing project, as the government believes that the timing is ideal for such efforts. However, Wang said that the government should use the special budget on more practical policies, such as boosting disease-prevention measures and disinfection at stores and markets, so that more people would be willing to shop there, despite the outbreak.

Source: Taipei Times March 03, 2020 15:56 UTC