Conference participants push for direct flights

Several participants at an economic conference on Saturday called for the earlier launch of direct cross-strait flights, claiming that such flights are vital to the development of the nation's tourism, service industry and economy.

Johnsee Lee (李鍾熙), president of the Industrial Technology Research Institute (工研院) in Hsinchu said that tourism, leisure activities and sports are vital service sectors and keys to the country's future economic development.

Foreign tourists bring in capital and create job opportunities for both blue- and white-collar workers without damaging the environment, and that is why advanced countries compete to attract tourists from abroad, Lee said.

In order to develop local tourism, Lee said, the nation should try to attract visitors from China, which boasts a population of nearly 1.5 billion.

However, this goal can hardly be realized without direct flight services between Taiwan and China, he said.

His opinion was shared by Liang Chi-yuan (梁啟源), a researcher at Academia Sinica's Economics Institute, who said at the conference that the nation's service industry has undergone two stages of rapid development.

The first stage took place around 1985, when the country deregulated its financial sector, which led to the rapid emergence of new banks, security firms, insurance companies and other financial institutions.

The second stage of development occurred between 1997 and 1998 when the country opened its telecommunications market to foreign competition in line with the globalization trend.

Service sector development has stagnated in recent years because the domestic market has become saturated with competitors who have to venture into foreign markets to bolster their continued development, Liang said.