The Coast Guard coast guard (CGA), which was established only one and a-half years ago, has recently announced several new directions for the future.
These include the establishment of an air arm as well as the building of new ships and radar stations.
Theplans were announced by coast guard deputy director Yu Chien-tzi (游乾賜) recently as the CGA showcased its newest patrol boat, which was a 500-tonne boat built in Taiwan.
Yu said he mapped out the new directions for the coast guard on the basis of inspection trips he made to the coast guards in Japan, Canada, and the US.
"We plan to have an air arm in the future. The air arm is to be comprised of helicopters.
"Considering that the CGA's budget is limited, we plan to lease helicopters from civilian companies and we will pay only for the flight hours we use the helicopters," Yu said.
The air arm plan, though watered down because of a limited budget, indicates that the coast guard is determined to enhance its law enforcement capacity to the levels of coast guards of advanced countries.
As for the building of new ships, Yu said, the coast guard plans to build 100 more new ships in the years to come.
"We now have around 100 boats. But scholars suggest that we need over 200 ships to effectively enforce law in Taiwan's territorial waters," Yu said.
"We need more 35-tonne ships in the future. This type of ship is more suitable for maneuvering along the shoreline.
Most of the coast guard's patrol boats were built locally. The recently showcased 500-tonne patrol vessel, called Taipei Ship, is one of the examples.
The Taipei Ship was built upon the same design which the navy used for its "Chingchiang" missile boats.
The coast guard may need, however, to recruit more crew members if it wants to enlarge its patrol boats to over 200.
A medium-ranking official with the coast guard, who declined to be identified, said the CGA now has only 1,000 crew members to operate the 100-plus patrol boats.
"We already have a manpower shortage problem ... We really need to recruit many more crew members otherwise we will not be able to meet the demand in the future," the official said.
The coast guard has another objective in view which is to build more radar stations across the country.
"We now have 45 radar stations islandwide. We plan to build 33 more radar stations to make a total of 78 in the future," the coast guard's deputy director Yu said.
"As we build new radar stations, we will also seek to strengthen the existing ones. Many of the existing radar stations cannot operate their radar around the clock for lack of a back-up system," Yu said.
"Our goal is to enable every radar station to operate 24 hours a day."
Yu also revealed that the CGA is to deploy a mobile radar system in the years to come.
"At the moment the system is still being experimented upon," Yu said.
The mobile radar system the coast guard is currently working on is carried by a car, which can extend its radar disk to the height of a three-story building.
"With the mobile radar system, the nation-wide monitoring network of the CGA will become perfect," an official with the coast guard said.
The monitoring system boasts a three-dimensional watch capability which uses radar and thermal imaging systems as well as sonar.
The system had been installed experimentally along a 10km shoreline in northeast Taiwan.
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