Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) yesterday proposed a blueprint to turn Taiwan into a “tertiary industry-based country” that can attract more than 10 million international tourists a year over the next decade.
“Where there is the will, we can make it,” Jiang said, citing a recent policy revision that he said helped bring the annual foreign visitor number to a record 8 million on the last day of last year.
Jiang was referring to the increase in the daily quota for free independent Chinese travelers from 2,000 to 3,000 that began on Dec. 1 last year.
Photo: CNA
A National Immigration Agency official said that Jiang had decided to raise the quota at meeting in November last year, during which officials estimated arrivals of foreign visitors for last year could fall about 100,000 short of 8 million.
The Executive Yuan yesterday held a reception for Aya Omote of Japan, who arrived in Taipei on Sunday with her husband for their honeymoon and was identified as the nation’s 8 millionth international visitor last year.
The couple were given NT$500,000 worth of gifts from local businesses, including several round-trip air tickets between Taiwan and Japan, hotel accommodation, a tablet computer and souvenirs.
According to the Tourism Bureau, China, Japan, and Hong Kong and Macau ranked as the three largest sources of overseas arrivals, accounting for 36.5 percent (2.634 million), 17.7 percent (1.279 million) and 14.7 percent (1.06 million) respectively.
As of November, Taiwan had received 307,000 tourists from South Korea last year, a 30.8 percent annual increase, thanks in part to Grandpas Over Flowers, a South Korean TV series documenting four senior citizens’ travels abroad, including in Taiwan, a Tourism Bureau official said by telephone.
In terms of year-on-year growth in arrivals, South Korea was followed by Malaysia and then Hong Kong and Macau, which showed an increase of 15.6 percent and 15.5 percent respectively, the official said.
The bureau’s data showed that Taiwan remained a less popular destination for travelers from Europe and the US.
Compared with the same period from January to November 2012, the number of tourists grew by 1.6 percent last year, while the number of US visitors decreased by 0.1 percent, the data showed.
Minister of Transportation and Communications Yeh Kuang-shih (葉匡時) attributed the growth, at the rate of 1 million per year since 2009, to President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) cross-strait policies, which he said have raised Taiwan’s international visibility.
Jiang urged all government agencies to work hard to build Taiwan as a tourism destination for medical care, culture and leisure to achieve the target of 9 million foreign visitors this year.
MISINFORMATION: The generated content tends to adopt China’s official stance, such as ‘Taiwan is currently governed by the Chinese central government,’ the NSB said Five China-developed artificial intelligence (AI) language models exhibit cybersecurity risks and content biases, an inspection conducted by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The five AI tools are: DeepSeek, Doubao (豆包), Yiyan (文心一言), Tongyi (通義千問) and Yuanbao (騰訊元寶), the bureau said, advising people to remain vigilant to protect personal data privacy and corporate business secrets. The NSB said it, in accordance with the National Intelligence Services Act (國家情報工作法), has reviewed international cybersecurity reports and intelligence, and coordinated with the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau and the National Police Agency’s Criminal Investigation Bureau to conduct an inspection of China-made AI language
LIMITS: While China increases military pressure on Taiwan and expands its use of cognitive warfare, it is unwilling to target tech supply chains, the report said US and Taiwan military officials have warned that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could implement a blockade within “a matter of hours” and need only “minimal conversion time” prior to an attack on Taiwan, a report released on Tuesday by the US Senate’s China Economic and Security Review Commission said. “While there is no indication that China is planning an imminent attack, the United States and its allies and partners can no longer assume that a Taiwan contingency is a distant possibility for which they would have ample time to prepare,” it said. The commission made the comments in its annual
CHECKING BOUNDARIES: China wants to disrupt solidarity among democracies and test their red lines, but it is instead pushing nations to become more united, an expert said The US Department of State on Friday expressed deep concern over a Chinese public security agency’s investigation into Legislator Puma Shen (沈伯洋) for “secession.” “China’s actions threaten free speech and erode norms that have underpinned the cross-strait ‘status quo’ for decades,” a US Department of State spokesperson said. The Chongqing Municipal Public Security Bureau late last month listed Shen as “wanted” and launched an investigation into alleged “secession-related” criminal activities, including his founding of the Kuma Academy, a civil defense organization that prepares people for an invasion by China. The spokesperson said that the US was “deeply concerned” about the bureau investigating Shen
‘TROUBLEMAKER’: Most countries believe that it is China — rather than Taiwan — that is undermining regional peace and stability with its coercive tactics, the president said China should restrain itself and refrain from being a troublemaker that sabotages peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday. Lai made the remarks after China Coast Guard vessels sailed into disputed waters off the Senkaku Islands — known as the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) in Taiwan — following a remark Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made regarding Taiwan. Takaichi during a parliamentary session on Nov. 7 said that a “Taiwan contingency” involving a Chinese naval blockade could qualify as a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, and trigger Tokyo’s deployment of its military for defense. Asked about the escalating tensions
RSS