Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou said Sunday his government aimed to create 100,000 jobs this year in a bid to cut the island's unemployment rate significantly.
Taiwan's Council for Economic Planning and Development has set a target for lowering the island's jobless rate from just under six percent in 2009 to 4.9 percent this year, a goal that Ma said would be "no easy task."
To help achieve that target, "the government will try to create up to 100,000 jobs this year," Ma said during a trip to Hualien, in eastern Taiwan, without providing details of the job-creation scheme.
He said there were encouraging signs for employment, including a gradual recovery in the the high-tech and electronic sectors and a consecutive decline in the unemployment rate for the last four months of 2009.