TAIWAN'S ARMED FORCES TO BE CUT TO 275,000 BY 2008
ROC Central News Agency
2006-08-29 21:47:29
Taipei, Aug. 29 (CNA) The government is continuing its efforts to downsize the armed forces, with a target of cutting the number of troops to 275,000 by 2008, Defense Minister Lee Jye announced Tuesday.
Lee made the announcement as he presided over a meeting to publish the 2006 national defense report, which reaffirms the nation's main defense policy goals of war prevention, homeland defense and anti-terrorism.
Wu Chi-fang, spokesman for the Ministry of National Defense, explained that the armed forces started to downsize in 1997, cutting the number of troops from 450,000 to 380,000 within three years.
After that, a new program was put in place with a schedule to reduce the troops to fewer than 300,000 by 2009, but now the minister has moved that schedule forward again, he noted.
According to the report, the ministry is also reforming its recruiting system, aiming to change its current conscription system so that by 2008, 60 percent of the service men and women will be voluntary, with the other 40 percent conscripted.
The term of conscription has also been shortened, so that from January this year, drafted service personnel who have served one year and four months will be discharged. Formerly, the service period was one year and 10 months.
Another reform of the armed forces is to lower the age from 40 to 35 whereupon discharged members then become reservists. The measure will bring down the number of reservists.
(By S.C. Chang)
ENDITEM/J
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