Bidding to supply the frame of the navy’s new amphibious assault ship, priced at NT$3.6 billion (US$117.6 million), is to take place tomorrow, military sources said.
The first bidding in April failed to attract offers due to the low overall budget, sources said.
Despite minor revisions, the amount of allotted funding has not changed, the Ministry of National Defense said.
The project, codenamed Hong Yun, is to receive NT$6.2 billion in funding starting in 2021, of which NT$3.6 billion is allotted for the frame while the remaining funds are to be used for weapon and technical support systems, sources said.
The main difficulty would be whether shipbuilders are able to manufacture a frame for a combat-capable vessel at that price, the sources said.
All eligible bidders must show documented proof of past contracts for building sections of a ship weighing more than 1,000 tonnes, the ministry said, adding that at least three eligible bidders must be present for the bidding to start.
Whether the President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) administration’s indigenous shipbuilding project would be on schedule depends on the outcome of the bidding, the sources said.
However, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Tsai Shih-ying (蔡適應) cautioned the ministry against setting the bar too low.
The project must have balanced funding, and an insufficient allocation — which would cause contractors to give bids that are too low — should be avoided, Tsai Shih-ying said.
Allowing shipbuilders to have reasonable profit margins would help the nation maintain a healthy defense industry, he said.
The project seeks to update the navy’s amphibious landing vessels, which have all been in service for more than four decades and require increasing maintenance costs, the ministry said.
The vessel would ideally displace about 10,000 tonnes and would be armed with ship-borne surface-to-air missiles, 76mm auto cannon turrets and the Phalanx close-in weapons system. Its primary duty would be to ferry amphibious craft for landing, such as the AAV-7.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater