TAIPEI - TAIWAN plans to boost its economic stimulus package to 500 billion Taiwan dollars (S$22.6 billion) amid signs of growing economic deterioration, officials said on Thursday.

The Council for Economic Planning and Development, the top government economic planning agency in Taiwan, said it planned to propose an 80 billion Taiwan dollars increase to the mega-economic stimulus plan slated to be implemented over the next four years.

The original blueprint was an extra 420 billion dollars that was earmarked for infrastructure projects running from 2009 to 2012, plus 82.9 billion dollars-worth of shopping vouchers to be handed out next year to stimulate the economy.

'Our proposal is to raise the infrastructure expansion projects by 80 billion to 500 billion dollars for the next four years,' said an official of the council.

'The revision is to be submitted to the Executive Yuan for approval at a quarterly cabinet meeting next Thursday,' the official added.

The proposed stimulus package would create an estimated 200,000 jobs, the United Evening News reported, citing another official from the council.

The announcement came three days after figures showed Taiwan's unemployment rate had hit a four-year high in October at 4.37 per cent.

The island's economy continued to show signs of slowing, with the index of leading indicators in September falling 0.3 per cent from August, the government said.

Exports, the engine of the economy, fell 8.3 per cent in October from a year earlier, largely on slumping demand for electronic and precision products amid the global economic slowdown.

The island's GDP fell 1.02 per cent in the three months to September from a year earlier - defying forecasts of modest growth - due to weak domestic and external demand, officials said.

The government said it expected GDP to fall another 1.73 per cent in the fourth quarter and cut its 2008 full-year GDP growth projection to 1.87 per cent from the previous figure of 4.30 per cent. -- AFP