President highlights troop pay raise at military graduation ceremony
ROC Central News Agency
06/21/2023 12:51 PM
Taipei, June 21 (CNA) President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) highlighted her government's military reforms and a 4 percent raise for Taiwan's military personnel to start in 2024 during a speech at a joint graduation ceremony of six military academies on Wednesday.
Tsai said the military is renovating dormitories, military camps and bases and will raise the salaries of military personnel on Jan. 1, 2024, moves that she said are all intended to take good care of Taiwan's troops.
The pay raise will be part of a proposed amendment to the 2024 central government budget bill that provides a 4 percent pay raise for all public sector workers next year.
The proposal was approved by the Cabinet on June 1, but still needs to be passed by the Legislature, considered to be a formality given that the ruling Democratic Progressive Party has a majority in the lawmaking body.
It is also unlikely that any political parties will oppose a pay raise for an estimated 730,000 civil servants, public school teachers and military personnel, given that Taiwan will hold presidential and legislative elections in January 2024.
Public sector employees last got a pay raise in 2022, when their salaries were also increased by 4 percent.
Meanwhile, in her address at the National Defense University's Fu Hsing Kang College in Taipei's Beitou District, Tsai praised her administration's decision to launch a series of military reforms to boost the armed forces' readiness to defend national security.
Such efforts include building warplanes and warships at home, reforming the structure of the military, and including female veterans in volunteer reservist training programs for the first time.
These were done to bolster Taiwan military's combat preparedness and resilience, she said.
Tsai's praise of her policies comes as her second and final four-term in office nears an end. Tsai will remain in office until mid-May 2024 after a new president is chosen in January.
Around 500 students got their diplomas at the joint graduation ceremony of the Military Academy, the Naval Academy, the Air Force Academy, the National Defense University, the National Defense Medical Center, and the Air Force Institute of Technology.
Among the students were 12 cadets from four of Taiwan's formal diplomatic allies - Belize, Paraguay, Eswatini and Guatemala.
It was also the first joint graduation ceremony for the nation's military academies in four years since June 2019 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
(By Matt Yu and Joseph Yeh)
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