The officials will focus on rearranging the priorities for implementating the campaign pledges made by President Ma Ying-jeou during the presidential election campaign.

Liu and his team will also set the pace for smoother and more effective operations for closer coordination among various agencies within the government at the one-and-a-half-day meeting at Yangmingshan (Mt. Sunshine) in suburban Taipei.

President Ma and his senior staff joined the Cabinet members yesterday afternoon.

After taking over the administrative work on May 20, the Cabinet, led by Liu, has swiftly and successfully launched direct charter passenger flights across the Taiwan Strait on weekends on July 4 and package tours for Chinese people on July 18.

Officials also announced the measures to liberalize investments in the local financial market and Taiwan enterprises’ expansion in China.

However, the team had to spend much time cleaning up the messy loose ends left by the preceding government, including the unpopular task of lifting the freeze on fuel and electricity prices.

The price hikes and successive floods also caused a steep drop in the popularity ratings for both the Cabinet and President Ma, who just won the presidential race with an unprecedented wide margin in late March.

Premier Liu urged his teammates, most of whom held key positions in government branches eight years ago when the ruling Kuomintang was in power, to face the new realities of today’s Taiwan society.

Liu himself served as vice premier in addition to heading the National Science Council and the Ministry of Transportation and Communications.

People here now hold ever-high expectations of the government after eight miserable years, when the international community posed ever-daunting challenges brought by energy costs and mounting inflation pressure.

To reset the pace, he said, the new Cabinet will end “guerrilla-style warfare” and move toward “orderly and methodical governance.”

Liu’s Cabinet has been criticized for its erratic pace, lack of preparation, slow response and gaffes over the past two months by people who wanted a quick fix to the host of problems.

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