Vice Premier and concurrently Pension System Reform Task Force convener Jiang Yi-huah visited the People First Party's (PFP) legislative caucus today to seek support for the Executive Yuan's move to conduct pension reform.
Jiang said the meeting was amicable and constructive. "We agreed with the PFP that the pension reform should be planned with a broad, long-term view, and the relevant investigation deadline should not be fixed to next January," he noted. Jiang reiterated that January is simply the deadline for the Executive Yuan to make a preliminary reform proposal, after which he and his team will call on each legislative caucus again to gather support.
Council for Economic Planning and Development Minister Yiin Chii-ming, Council of Labor Affairs Minister Pan Shih-wei and Directorate-General of Personnel Administration Minister Huang Fu-yuan accompanied Jiang, who said the PFP's suggestions on pension reform were "very helpful."
According to Jiang, the most important jobs for the task force at present are soliciting advice from professionals of various fields, holding forums to gather opinions at the ground level and visiting all the legislative caucuses. He stressed that the Executive Yuan would draw up a preliminary plan after studying all this information and will call on the caucuses to seek their support for it.
In response to media questions about when future visits would take place, the vice premier said that the Executive Yuan has already sent meeting requests to all caucuses and received positive responses, but out of respect, the task force would let each one decide whether to make such meetings public. Jiang visited the ruling Kuomintang caucus last week.