Bidding for the second phase of construction at the Port of Kaohsiung’s Cargo Terminal No. 7 is scheduled to begin in the second half of this year after the Public Construction Commission reviews its budget, Taiwan International Ports Corp (TIPC) said yesterday.
The terminal is part of the firm’s plan to enhance the competitiveness of the nation’s largest international seaport and to sustain its development, it said.
The terminal is to be equipped with five deepwater piers, with a total pier length of 2.42km, which would allow it to berth container ships with capacities for 20,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), the company said.
The first phase of construction, which includes building two of the deepwater piers and a land reclamation project, is scheduled to be completed next month, it said.
The Executive Yuan has approved the second-phase construction plan, the company said, adding that it was working on a more detailed design for the terminal.
TIPC said that it in December last year signed a 50-year lease with Evergreen Marine Corp that would allow the shipping firm to have exclusive use of the terminal.
Evergreen was keen to lease the terminal, as the nation lacks deepwater piers that allow the berthing of 20,000-TEU cargo container ships, which has become a trend in the international shipping industry, TIPC said.
Evergreen plans to turn the terminal into an automated container handling base, which would have the capacity to process 4.1 million TEUs per year, it said.
The government is to invest NT$16.3 billion (US$518.12 million) to build infrastructure around the terminal, while Evergreen is to invest NT$20.6 billion to purchase heavy machinery to handle containers, TIPC said.
The shipping firm is to begin operations at the terminal after TIPC completes infrastructure construction in June 2023, it added.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai