A quasi-official organization founded last year to promote economic and cultural exchanges with Hong Kong is scheduled to hold its second joint meeting with its Hong Kong counterpart tomorrow, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday.
Representatives of the -Taiwan-Hong Kong Economic and Cultural Co-operation Council (ECCC) will meet in Hong Kong with the Hong Kong--Taiwan Economic and Cultural Co--operation and Promotion Council (ECCPC), said the MAC, which oversees the ECCC.
REVIEW
During the one-day meeting, delegates are expected to review progress in economic and cultural cooperation over the past year and discuss cooperation in new areas for the coming year, the MAC said.
ECCC chairman Lin Chen-kuo (林振國) will lead the 20-member delegation, which will also include some of its advisers such as Sun Chen (孫震), an academic, and former vice chairwoman of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Lin Cheng-chih (林澄枝).
Also that day, the ECCC Economic Cooperation Committee will hold a Taiwan-Hong Kong economic and trade forum in Hong Kong, the MAC said.
The ECCC was established in May last year following Hong Kong’s establishment of the ECCPC two months earlier. Lee Yeh-kwong (李業廣) has since served as ECCPC chairman.
FIRST MEETING
The two intermediary bodies held their first joint meeting in Taipei on Aug. 30 last year.
During that meeting, the two sides decided to take turns hosting joint meetings at least once a year and convening additional gatherings whenever needed.
They established principles for communication and interaction between the two sides.
Mainland Affairs Council Minister Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) and Hong Kong Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Stephen Lam (林瑞麟) attended the first ECCC-ECCPC meeting in Taipei.
Hong Kong’s role as a transit hub for people and goods between Taiwan and China has been reduced as a result of warmer cross-strait ties since President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took office in 2008.
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
NUMBERS IMBALANCE: More than 4 million Taiwanese have visited China this year, while only about half a million Chinese have visited here Beijing has yet to respond to Taiwan’s requests for negotiation over matters related to the recovery of cross-strait tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. Taiwan’s tourism authority issued the statement after Chinese-language daily the China Times reported yesterday that the government’s policy of banning group tours to China does not stop Taiwanese from visiting the country. As of October, more than 4.2 million had traveled to China this year, exceeding last year. Beijing estimated the number of Taiwanese tourists in China could reach 4.5 million this year. By contrast, only 500,000 Chinese tourists are expected in Taiwan, the report said. The report
Temperatures are forecast to drop steadily as a continental cold air mass moves across Taiwan, with some areas also likely to see heavy rainfall, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. From today through early tomorrow, a cold air mass would keep temperatures low across central and northern Taiwan, and the eastern half of Taiwan proper, with isolated brief showers forecast along Keelung’s north coast, Taipei and New Taipei City’s mountainous areas and eastern Taiwan, it said. Lows of 11°C to 15°C are forecast in central and northern Taiwan, Yilan County, and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, and 14°C to 17°C
STEERING FAILURE: The first boat of its class is experiencing teething issues as it readies for acceptance by the navy, according to a recent story about rudder failure The Hai Kun (海鯤), the nation’s first locally built submarine, allegedly suffered a total failure of stern hydraulic systems during the second round of sea acceptance trials on June 26, and sailors were forced to manually operate the X-rudder to turn the submarine and return to port, news Web site Mirror Daily reported yesterday. The report said that tugboats following the Hai Kun assisted the submarine in avoiding collisions with other ships due to the X-rudder malfunctioning. At the time of the report, the submarine had completed its trials and was scheduled to begin diving and surfacing tests in shallow areas. The X-rudder,
RSS