The government has allowed shipping firms to offer direct passenger services between Penghu County and China since 2008, although none have yet applied to do so, Deputy Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材) said yesterday.
Wang made the remarks on the sidelines of a meeting at the legislature in Taipei in response to media queries for comment about Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu’s (韓國瑜) proposal to launch direct ferry services between the outlying county and China’s Fujian Province, as are offered from Kinmen and Lienchiang counties.
Han, the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential candidate, made the promise to Penghu County Commissioner Lai Feng-wei (賴峰偉) at a campaign rally in Penghu on Sunday.
The county does not have a direct ferry service to China, even though it is permitted by law, Lai told Han, adding that the lack of such services means most Chinese tourists from Fujian arrive in Penghu via Kinmen.
Lai said that he has been working to establish direct services from Penghu to Xiamen and Pingtan, as well as direct flights from Penghu’s Magong Airport to Quanzhou Jinjiang International Airport.
However, as cross-strait affairs fall under the jurisdiction of the central government, none of these services would be realized if the government disapproves, he said.
Tourists from Fujian are indeed more likely to arrive in Penghu via Kinmen and Lienchiang, Wang said yesterday, adding that Penghu’s cross-strait shipping services are mostly for cargo.
Chinese tourists often arrive on chartered vessels, he said.
Penghu welcomes about 1.2 million domestic tourists annually and that number is rising at about 10 percent per year, he said.
The number of tourists visiting Penghu has grown from about 1.15 million in 2017 to 1.8 million last year, Tourism Bureau statistics showed.
About 1.1 million tourists have visited the outlying island this year to last month, an 11 percent increase from the same period last year, the statistics showed.
Penghu has emerged as a popular travel destination thanks to the government’s travel subsidy program, the bureau said.
The program has subsidized 173 tour groups and 88,000 independent visitors to the islands, it said.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
RSS