The Tourism Bureau announced yesterday that Yang Ruey-tzhong (楊瑞宗) has been chosen as the Taiwan Strait Tourism Association’s representative in Beijing.
Yang, chief of the Third Directorate of the Executive Yuan, will also be the first government official to be stationed in China.
The Taiwan Strait Tourism Association is a quasi-official organization representing the nation in negotiations on cross-strait tourism affairs. Its counterpart in China is the Cross Strait Tourism Association.
Tourism Bureau Director-General Janice Lai (賴瑟珍) is the chairwoman of the Taiwan Strait Tourism Association, whereas Chinese National Tourism Administration director Shao Qiwei (邵琪偉) heads the Cross Strait Tourism Association.
Fan Gui-shan (范貴山), deputy chief secretary of the Cross-Strait Tourism Association, will be in charge of the association’s office in Taipei. Fan was the former department chief of the Chinese National Tourism Administration.
The Tourism Bureau said in a statement yesterday that Yang received his doctoral degree in East Asian Studies from National Chengchi University. The Third Directorate of the Executive Yuan supervises the execution of tourism policy, the statement said, adding that the appointment was approved by the Executive Yuan.
The Tourism Bureau said Yang’s first and primary task would be to increase the number of Chinese tourists visiting Taiwan. He will also communicate with China on cross-strait tourism issues.
Meanwhile, both associations filed applications to establish offices in Beijing and Taipei on Tuesday. The Tourism Bureau said the offices should open at the beginning of next year.
In the Cross-Strait Agreement Concerning Mainland Tourists Traveling to Taiwan (海峽兩岸關於大陸居民赴台灣旅遊協議) signed last year, the two sides agreed to “set up offices to deal with tourism-related matters so as to provide efficient, convenient and effective services to tourists.”
Both sides consider the time ripe to materialize the agreement, the Tourism Bureau said in a statement. The Ministry of Transportation and Communications said the number of Chinese tourists to visit Taiwan could top 400,000 this year.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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