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TAIPEI, TAIWAN - UP TO 6,000 Taiwan civil servants may lose their jobs as President Ma Ying-jeou's administration plans to build a leaner but more efficient government, a report said on Sunday.
The number of ministries and cabinet-level agencies will be reduced from 37 to 28 and up to 6,000 government employees may lose their jobs in an early retirement scheme due to be completed in 2010, the China Times said.
'More than 80 per cent of people have shown their support to the plan according to our surveys,' Minister Jiang Yi-huah of the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission, was quoted by the paper as saying.
Ma became president in May last year on a platform of building an efficient government but doubts have emerged over whether he can implement the plan when Taiwan's economy is deteriorating.
The Kuomintang government first raised the idea 22 years ago but previous attempts to implement it have failed.
Taiwan's unemployment rate rose to a six-year high of 5.31 per cent in January, largely due to downsizing and business closures amid the recession, the government said.
In an attempt to counter opposition to the plan, Mr Jiang said the government would offer attractive benefits to employees who took up the offer of early retirement. -- AFP
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