Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) yesterday announced his first visit to Beijing since taking office in 2006, set for Thursday, to promote tourism in Taipei and visit “some old friends.”
Hau told the media that the visit will run from Thursday until Sunday.
The Beijing trip has been planned in accordance with the city’s Department of Information and Tourism’s planned participation in the upcoming Beijing International Tourism Expo 2014 from Friday to Sunday, the Taipei mayor said.
The mayor plans to promote tourism in Taipei during his stay in Beijing.
He said he will also exchange views with relevant Chinese officials on city administration affairs and visit infrastructure facilities such as the Chinese capital’s subway system.
Hau expressed particular interest in the Beijing subway’s counter-terrorism measures — a source of particular concern in Taipei after a knife-wielding assailant killed four and injured 24 on a Taipei metro train late last month.
As for his “old friends,” Hau mentioned officials serving at China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, and Beijing’s municipal government, all of whom he said he became acquainted with when they visited Taipei in the past.
Asked whether he will meet Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍) in Beijing, Hau said such a meeting is still being arranged.
Chinese-language media reports have indicated Hau and Zhang are to meet in Beijing following Zhang’s trip to Taiwan from Thursday to Saturday.
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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