Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) yesterday asked the Pingtung County Government and developers to speed up the construction of pleasure boat piers and yachting clubs at the Tapeng Bay National Resort Area (大鵬灣國家風景區).
During an inspection of the area, Su said that car racing, golf and ocean playground facilities now under construction would not be sufficient to attract large numbers of tourists when an international tourist hotel is completed in 2012.
He ordered builders to move up the 2010 target for completing piers for pleasure boats but did not give a new timeframe, apart from expressing hope that tourists would start swarming to the area next year.
Kaohsiung Games
Minister of Transportation and Communications Kuo Yao-chi (
Su also decided on which blueprint to adopt for a major bridge in the bay area, opting for a medium-priced design that would cost NT$920 million (US$28.8 million) rather than a more extravagant NT$1.2 billion plan, or a much less costly but also less attractive plan that would cost only NT$420 million.
Rail infrastructure
After listening to a briefing by Pingtung County Magistrate Tsao Chi-hung (
Overpass tracks would cost an additional NT$5 billion, but would ease ground traffic congestion, change Pingtung's landscape and increase land values, he said.
The premier vetoed Tsao's suggestion of building a 40km bike route under the No. 3 National Expressway from Chiuju (
He also instructed the Council of Agriculture to set aside a budget for eight Hakka communities in the county to build roads linking to major highways.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group