Legislative Speaker Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) on Monday called a round of cross-caucus negotiations over the budget, which continued past midnight. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus secretary-general William Tseng (曾銘宗) suggested that the amount trimmed from the budget — a standard practice during budget reviews — should be larger than the average of the amount cut over the past three years. After discussions between Tseng and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘), the DPP caucus agreed to the proposal, and Su passed a resolution to cut the budget by 1.19 percent based on calculations by Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics Minister Chu Tzer-ming (朱澤民). The KMT caucus filed a motion to cut by half the NT$18.61 million budget requested by the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee, which was opposed by the DPP. The caucuses also failed to agree on a motion regarding the budget for the second stage of a local submarine program.

Source: Taipei Times January 08, 2019 15:56 UTC