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Triple Stimulus Voucher

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Triple Stimulus Voucher
The Triple Stimulus Vouchers
Traditional Chinese振興三倍券
Simplified Chinese振兴三倍券
Literal meaningRevitalization triple coupon
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinZhènxīng sān bèi quàn
Wade–GilesChên-hsing san-bei-ch'üan
Hakka
RomanizationChṳn-hîn sâm-phi-khién
Yue: Cantonese
JyutpingZan3hing1 saam1 pui5 hyun3
Southern Min
Hokkien POJChín-heng sam-pē-koàn

Triple Stimulus Vouchers were a series of vouchers issued in response to the 2020 Coronavirus recession by the government of the Republic of China as part of its post-epidemic revitalisation of the business climate in the country, as the economy of Taiwan took a major hit from the global pandemic.[1]

The Triple Stimulus Vouchers were valid from July 15 to December 31, 2020, or about 6 months in total. A 200-point voucher equaled NT$200, and a 500-point equaled NT$500. The total amount of vouchers received per person was 3,000 points (NT$3,000), 5,200-point vouchers and 4,500-point.

History

Background

See also: COVID-19 recession and ROC consumer voucher

The economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic had affected the Republic of China as soon as they took preventative measures to combat it, and the Executive Yuan under Tsai Ing-wen had issued government bailouts to help stimulate the economy as early as February 2020.[2][3][4] Further bills were passed to help stimulate the economy in March,[5] April,[6][7] and May.[8][9] The Triple Stimulus Vouchers were likewise an attempt to help stimulate the economy and were not without precedent as the government of the Republic of China had issued economic stimulus vouchers before in 2009.[10]

The Democratic Progressive Party introduced the Triple Stimulus Vouchers with the motivation that they would not only stimulate business opportunities, but they would also encourage people to spend more time with their family and friends, and that they can also stimulate the consumption habits of people who do not usually spend time outside.[11][12]

Rollout

Instructions for using the Triple Stimulus Vouchers at Taipei City Hall, Taipei.

These vouchers were available in two forms, people could register to receive them as physical vouchers which resembled banknotes or as digital vouchers that could be used on the internet tied to electronic payments, e-ticket, credit cards, as well as other digital consumption models.[1]

To boost consumer spending, people were encouraged to purchase NT$3,000 worth of Triple Stimulus Vouchers for NT$1,000.[13] At the same time the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, the Council of Agriculture, the Sports Administration, the Ministry of Culture, and the Hakka Affairs Council also issued their own vouchers and coupons to help boost more specific sectors of the economy.[13][14]

List of stimulus vouchers issued in response to the Coronavirus recession by the government of the Republic of China:[15][13][14][16]

Name
(Traditional Chinese)		 Issuing office Monetary value Where people could register Where and how people could spend them Eligibility Number of eligible people that would receive the vouchers Dates of validity
Triple Stimulus Voucher
(振興三倍券)		 Ministry of Economic Affairs NT$3000 (with NT$1,000 upfront payment) https://emake.3000.gov.tw/hpg/index.jsp Shop at selected stores, buy train tickets, and even pay for taxi fares. Republic of China citizens, newborns born before 2020/12/31, and spouses of Taiwanese (ROC) nationals who hold residency permits. 23,150,000 15 July 2020–31 December 2020
Culture Voucher
(藝FUN券)		 Ministry of Culture NT$600 Through a dedicated smartphone app. Bookstores, cinemas, museums, performance venues, record stores, Etc. Republic of China citizens and foreign spouses who hold residency permits. 2,000,000 22 July 2020–31 December 2020
Agriculture Traveling Voucher
(電子版農遊券)		 Council of Agriculture NT$250 https://eticket.coa.gov.tw/ At agricultural experience activities, specialties at leisure farms, forest recreation areas, among others outside of the area where the holder resided. Republic of China citizens and foreign spouses who hold residency permits. 5,000,000 15 July 2020–31 December 2020
Sports Voucher (or "Don" Voucher)
(動滋券)		 Sports Administration NT$500 https://don500.sa.gov.tw/FOAS/actions/SportsAdmin.action Archived 2020-08-09 at the Wayback Machine To watch sports in a stadium or shop for sporting goods. Republic of China citizens and foreign spouses who hold residency permits. 4,000,000 1 August 2020–31 December 2020
Hakka E-Coupon
(客家電子旅遊券)		 Hakka Affairs Council NT$800 Through the official LINE account of the Hakka Affairs Council (@hakka_gov). 70 special promotion zones in 11 cities. Republic of China citizens and foreign spouses who hold residency permits.[a] 280,000 1 August 2020–31 December 2020

The total value of the stimulus vouchers issued by the various government organisations a single eligible person could receive added up to 5150 New Taiwan dollars.[15]

Initially the Ministry of Economic Affairs sought to only issue them digitally, but then under the pressure of public opinion they also launched these vouchers as paper certificates.[1] These consumer digital vouchers could be used through a website set up by the Republican Chinese government at "https://3000.gov.tw/".[1] In order to incentivise people to choose for the digital vouchers the Ministry of Economic Affairs launched a campaign where users of the digital vouchers could win a Gogoro VIVA Lite.[1] With the winners of the first wave of motor vehicles being drawn from July 6 to July 15 for 10 consecutive days, 1 draw every day, and the second wave of winners would be announced from July 16 to September 31.[1] The campaign would last a total of 15 weeks, and during the second round a winner was to be drawn out of once every week, with a total of 25 motor vehicles available for the draw.[1]

Eligible people could book them from July 1st, 2020.[1] By the afternoon of 3 July over 3 million people (or about 67.6% of all eligible people) had already registered to receive these vouchers.[1] Of these registrations over 70% of the people opted to receive them as paper certificates while only 30% opted for the digital versions.[17][1]

Rollout rounds and collection dates for Triple Stimulus Vouchers:[15]

Round Pre-ordering dates Collection date
Round 1 1–7 July 2020 15–31 July 2020
Round 2 8–12 July 2020 22–31 July 2020
Round 3 1–7 August 2020 15–31 August 2020

The Executive Yuan originally estimated that the printing of 3,000,000 copies for the public would obviously be insufficient, and in respond to the large demand for physical vouchers tripled the production and the President of the Executive Yuan of the Republic of China, Su Tseng-chang, responded that the people wouldn't need to worry about delays.[1] Local governments and small businesses reportedly told people to book as early as possible so there would be minimal delay during the rollout.[1]

Eligible people were able to order it to be picked up at either selected stores or to purchase them directly at post offices.[15][13]

By August 2,000 businesses had applied to be included on the list of authorised shops and locations for the Agriculture Traveling Voucher (電子版農遊券), a related voucher programme which was launched by the Council of Agriculture with the hopes of revitalising Taiwan's agriculture, forestry, fishery, and animal husbandry industries.[18]

Small and Medium Enterprise Administration Director-General Ho Chin-tsang (何晉滄) told reporters that by Tuesday 27 October 2020, 22,890,000 people had purchased the Triple Stimulus Vouchers, or 96% of the eligible people.[13]

As of 27 October 2020 the paper Triple Stimulus Vouchers were selected by 21.09 million people, while only 1.8 million people chose the electronic versions of the vouchers, with only 910,000 eligible people at the time still needing to collect their Triple Stimulus Vouchers.[13]

Criticisms

A number of pundits argued that the economy of Taiwan would recover in the third quarter of 2020 regardless if the Triple Stimulus Vouchers were issued or not and claimed that their issuance would only slow down the Q2 decline, rather than halt it.[19]

Some people expressed that "issuing more than 10 million Triple Stimulus Vouchers is equivalent to more than 10 million pieces of plastic." They criticised the government of the Republic of China for refusing to taking the lead in environmental protection and undermining the plastic restriction policy.[20]

The Kuomintang caucus in the Legislative Yuan claimed that the public's response to the Triple Stimulus Vouchers was that they were "difficult to obtain, difficult to exchange, and created triple the amount of complaints".[21] The Kuomintang further said that the market vendors and self-employed businesspeople could not be "revitalised" by the vouchers as it did not offer the ability to get change and that these coupons were not useful for making small transactions creating cash flow pressure.[21] The Kuomintang group called on Executive Yuan to quickly come up with specific measures to improve the inconvenience of the market vendors in accepting the Triple Stimulus Vouchers and to quickly find more specific ways to revitalise the economy rather than this "lotto-style" attempt.[21]

The Kuomintang argued that only when budgets are delegated to county governments and city governments and to put forward local conditions are to revitalise the economy can the intended "triple effect" truly be achieved.[21][22]

Ko Wen-je of the Taiwan People's Party noted that the timespan of the Triple Stimulus Vouchers was too brief to have the intended effect on the economy and that the Democratic Progressive Party and the Executive Yuan should look for other ways to stimulate the economy.[23]

Wang Shih-chien argued that Triple Stimulus Vouchers, like the earlier stimulus vouchers from 2009, would cost over a billion yuan to implement and would be invalidated as soon as four to five months after their issue. He called the implementation of the Triple Stimulus Vouchers "slow, dumb, and wasteful" and called for Su Tseng-chang and the rest of the Executive Yuan to change their mentality.[24]

Expansion of the programme

On 16 November 2020 the Ministry of Economic Affairs announced that the eligibility of the Triple Stimulus Vouchers would be expanded to both Alien Permanent Resident Certificate (APRC) and foreign diplomats.[25] The Ministry of Economic Affairs noted that people who would pick up paper Triple Stimulus Vouchers at post offices should bring either their health insurance card or their Alien Permanent Resident Certificate as well as NT$1000 pay for the vouchers.[25]

Alternatively, these newly eligible foreign residents could register online for the digital version with a credit card by a local bank, stored value cards, or mobile payments.[25]

Near their expiry date

In December 2020 many shops started offering discounts to people that did not use their voucher yet as they neared their expiration date.[26][27]

When the program ended on Thursday 31 December 2020, 98.35% of eligible residents of the Republic of China had claimed the Triple Stimulus Vouchers, with 21,510,000 people having obtained paper vouchers and 1,810,000 electronic vouchers.[28]

Effect on the economy

In an October 2020 report by the Ministry of Economic Affairs the various voucher and coupon programmes had tripled business revenue.[13]

According to Small and Medium Enterprise Administration Director-General Ho Chin-tsang the Triple Stimulus Vouchers had triggered a buying spree which was reflected in both business revenue as well as government tax income.[13] This was seen by the growth in July retail sales, which ended a five-month a contraction caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.[13]

Retail sales in the Republic of China set historical single-month highs in August 2020, as did the sales in the restaurant sector and the beverages sector.[13]

Kung Ming-hsin of the National Development Council said that the Triple Stimulus Voucher programme had contributed NT$100 billion to Taiwan's GDP.[28] The Ministry of Economic Affairs noted that the retail and food sectors benefited the most from the voucher programme, with both sectors recording their highest ever monthly revenue during the second half of 2020.[28]

Chen Hui-hsin (陳惠欣) of the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics stated that the COVID-19 pandemic had diminished consumer activity in Taiwan during the first quarter of 2020, pushing up the unemployment rate to 4.07% in May.[29] The situation then started to improve after July 2020, which Chen attributed a boom in domestic tourism after infections were brought under control and the Triple Stimulus Voucher programme.[29] By January 2020 the unemployment rate had dropped to 3.68%.[29]

Design

The 2020 triple stimulus vouchers were offered in two variants, one of 200 New Taiwan dollars and one of 500 New Taiwan dollars.[1] They both featured a map of the Republic of China (island of Taiwan and the other free areas) on the obverse with the denomination as well as the expiration date for final usage using the Chinese republican calendar (使用期限至109年12月31日止).[1] Above the map the text "中華民國 - 振興三倍券" (Republic of China - Triple Stimulus Voucher) appeared, while both notes contained a notice of the limitations that they cannot be exchanged for cash (不得換現金, bù dé huàn xiàn jīn), no change (不得找零錢, bù děi zhǎo líng qián), no stored value (不得儲值, bù dé chǔ zhí).[1] The vouchers both featured security features and on the right side was the word "TAIWAN" written in Latin script.[1]

The 200 point (worth NTD 200) voucher green in colour, while the 500 point (worth NTD 500) variant is red.[1]

Counterfeits

On August 13, 2020, prosecutors from Yunlin County found the first case of counterfeit Triple Stimulus Vouchers and arrested Su Qingwu, who is known as the "president of the underground central bank", and had counterfeited 2.5 million yuan worth of Triple Stimulus Vouchers.[30] Su Qingwu is known to have more than 30 years of experience in producing counterfeit banknotes and has been arrested multiple and imprisoned multiple times before.[31][32] These counterfeit vouchers were all produced within a span of 12 days.[33][31]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ The first round of registrations for the Hakka E-Coupon was specially designed for families with elderly members (those aged 65 and above) while the second round was open for everyone to register. With the results of those who would receive the vouchers announced on July 20 and July 27, respectively.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q 何豪毅 (5 July 2020). "經部設三倍券官網一覽好康 申領紙本逾七成排隊指日可待" (in Chinese (Taiwan)). CNEWS匯流新聞網. Retrieved 24 January 2021.
  2. ^ Wang, Flor; Yeh, Su-ping (13 February 2020). "NT$60 billion bailout plan laid out to cope with virus impact". Central News Agency. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
  3. ^ Lin, Sean (14 February 2020). "Virus Outbreak: Premier approves NT$60bn relief plan". Taipei Times. Retrieved 14 March 2020.
  4. ^ Lin, Sean (21 February 2020). "Virus Outbreak: Special bill introduced for COVID-19". Taipei Times. Retrieved 14 March 2020.
  5. ^ Fan, Cheng-hsiang; Wang, Yang-yu; Huang, Frances (13 March 2020). "NT$60 billion budget to cope with coronavirus clears Legislature". Central News Agency. Retrieved 13 March 2020.
  6. ^ Wu, Chia-jong; Mazetta, Matthew (2 April 2020). "Cabinet proposes NT$150 billion COVID-19 aid package for workers". Central News Agency. Retrieved 3 April 2020.
  7. ^ Lin, Sean (3 April 2020). "Virus Outbreak: Economic stimulus package expanded". Taipei Times. Retrieved 3 April 2020.
  8. ^ Lin, Sean (9 May 2020). "Virus Outbreak: Virus budget given NT$150bn top-up". Taipei Times. Retrieved 9 May 2020.
  9. ^ Wang, Yang-yu; Fan, Cheng-hsiang; Mazzetta, Matthew (8 May 2020). "Legislature approves NT$150 billion special budget (update)". Central News Agency. Retrieved 8 May 2020.
  10. ^ 振興經濟消費券領取人資格及發放作業辦法 Archived 2009-01-16 at the Wayback Machine
  11. ^ "三倍券一舉多得 蘇貞昌：刺激商機增進親友互動". 中央社CNA (in Chinese (Taiwan)). Retrieved 2020-07-27.
  12. ^ "三倍券 鄭運鵬：打三折消費券怎會不好用 - 政治". 中時新聞網 (in Chinese (Taiwan)). 2020-06-03. Retrieved 2020-07-27.
  13. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Staff writer, with CNA (30 October 2020). "Vouchers, coupons nearly triple business revenue". The Taipei Times. Retrieved 26 January 2021.
  14. ^ a b 玩咖PLAYing - 三倍券之後，還有藝FUN券、農遊券...5 大「國旅補助新制」觀光優惠全攻略. Retrieved: 27 January 2020.(in Mandarin Chinese using Traditional Chinese characters).
  15. ^ a b c d Mindy Lu (16 July 2020). "Five Stimulus Vouchers Available To All! … almost". The Taiwan Times. Retrieved 26 January 2021.
  16. ^ Sabrina Lee (29 July 2020). "動滋券怎麼領取、如何使用、合作店家清單一次看懂" (in Chinese (Taiwan)). Vogue. Retrieved 27 January 2021.
  17. ^ "時力民調：六成七民眾已領三倍券 七成認為領取方便". 自由時報電子報 (in Chinese (Taiwan)). 2020-07-26. Retrieved 2020-07-26.
  18. ^ Agroberichten Buitenland (20 August 2020). "Taiwanese government launched Stimulus Vouchers to help boost consumption". Government of the Netherlands (Rijksoverheid). Retrieved 27 January 2021.
  19. ^ 《三倍券規定「不找零」…又變沒硬性規定？兩套標準？哪門子溫暖？低收入戶匯1千再買券…脫褲子放X？-【阿娟精選帶你看】東森財經獨播20200602》 on YouTube
  20. ^ "三倍券塑膠片挨批垃圾 彭啟明嘆可惜：最後一關沒做好". 聯合新聞網 (in Chinese (Taiwan)). 2020-07-19. Retrieved 2020-07-26.
  21. ^ a b c d "三倍券變三倍怨！國民黨團：收券不便". 中時新聞網 (in Chinese (Taiwan)). Retrieved 2020-07-26.
  22. ^ "「三倍券發得少、成本卻增」 藍議員酸：笨蛋，不是早叫你們發現金了". 風傳媒 (in Chinese (Taiwan)). 2020-07-25. Retrieved 2020-07-26.
  23. ^ "柯文哲：三倍券可用5個半月 無法達到振興效果". 中央社CNA (in Chinese (Taiwan)). 2020-07-06. Retrieved 2020-07-27.
  24. ^ "三倍券成本12億 王世堅直批：好慢、好笨、好浪費". 聯合新聞網 (in Chinese (Taiwan)). 2020-07-21. Retrieved 2020-07-27.
  25. ^ a b c Staff writer (9 December 2020). "Triple Stimulus Vouchers should be used before Dec. 31, 2020". The Taipei Times (Advertorial - Sponsored by Small and Medium Enterprise Administration of MOEA). Retrieved 26 January 2021.
  26. ^ 張嘉容 (17 December 2020). "三倍券還沒花完？5大百貨推出振興「晚鳥優惠」" (in Chinese (Taiwan)). The Microsoft Network (MSN). Retrieved 24 January 2021.
  27. ^ "整理包／倒數計時！三倍券還沒花？四大振興券期限、晚鳥優惠一次看" (in Chinese (Taiwan)). 天下. 17 December 2020. Retrieved 24 January 2021.
  28. ^ a b c Staff writer, with CNA (2 January 2021). "Stimulus voucher program ended; 23m participated". The Taipei Times. Retrieved 27 January 2021.
  29. ^ a b c Crystal Hsu (23 January 2021). "Unemployment drops to 3.68 percent - 'STABLE SITUATION': First-time jobseekers declined, while people who quit fell by about 1,000, despite the COVID-19 situation suppressing consumer activity last year". The Taipei Times. Retrieved 27 January 2021.
  30. ^ 蔡沁縈 (2020-08-14). "【三倍券爆假】250萬假券全查扣 3要訣教你辨真假" (in Chinese (Taiwan)). 上報. Retrieved 2020-10-29.
  31. ^ a b 蔡佩旻 (2020-08-14). "影／起底「中央印製廠地下總裁」！國小畢業印刷廠學徒做起 擁「億來億去」身價" (in Chinese (Taiwan)). ETtoday新聞雲. Retrieved 2020-10-29.
  32. ^ 寶智華 (2020-08-14). "【獨家】假三倍券首腦起底！國小畢業台版《無雙》畫家 立委為他噴錢發雞排" (in Chinese (Taiwan)). 蘋果日報. Retrieved 2020-10-29.
  33. ^ 黃淑莉、林國賢 (2020-08-15). "偽造三倍券 半個月進化到第3代" (in Chinese (Taiwan)). 自由時報. Retrieved 2020-10-29.
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