Taipei's Ministry of Economic Affairs is sniffing about for more shoppers and is even hinting at a future shopping festival to drive up sales. For locals and visitors, this means increased sales and special promotional activities to ramp up retail revenue, and that's a win all around. If you're planning to shop in Taipei, keep your ears to the ground; good things are on their way.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs said Saturday that it will hold a “shopping festival” in the second half of the year to stimulate consumption in Taiwan at a time when the local economy shows few signs of picking up steam.

The festival, which will rely on widespread discounts and promotional activities to get consumers to spend more, is expected to create about NT$24 billion (US$800 million) in commercial opportunities, the ministry said.

The initiative is just one of several the government is taking to revive an economy that has remained stubbornly sluggish this year.

On May 24, the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) cut its forecast for Taiwan's private consumption growth for 2013 to 1.46 percent, from an earlier estimate of 1.86 percent made in February.

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