KAOHSIUNG: Taiwan will mourn the victims of Typhoon Morakot at a memorial at the Kaohsiung Arena, an official said yesterday.

The site in southern Taiwan's largest city was selected because it was in the south that the storm hit hardest and the worst of floods and landslides occurred. Bereaved families will be able to attend the memorial, said the official who declined to be named.

In preparation for the ceremony, officials from various government agencies inspected the arena yesterday morning.

"Premier" Liu Chao-shiuan hosted a meeting yesterday to discuss measures for delivering reconstruction resources to disaster areas more effectively.

Work on a government relief bill is moving forward. The eventual scale of the budget put forward by the Executive Yuan to carry out reconstruction projects will be decided by the legislature, Legislative Yuan president Wang Jin-pyng said yesterday.

The Executive Yuan has referred a special reconstruction bill worth NT$100 billion ($3.03 billion) to the Legislative Yuan. The bill requires approval of the legislature before reconstruction work can begin, Wang pointed out. He added that the legislature has the final say on the scale of the budget.

The Executive Yuan's version of the bill proposes a NT$100 billion budget to finance the special reconstruction bill, while an opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) version calls for double that amount - NT$200 billion or more - with no upper limit.

According to Wang, five representatives from the "Presidential Office", the Executive Yuan and the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) have exchanged views on reconstruction efforts and have reached consensus that the scale of the budget could be increased depending on actual needs.

China Daily/CNA

(HK Edition 08/27/2009 page2)