After a month of negotiations, the Taiwan Area National Freeway Bureau reached an agreement with the Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection Co yesterday for the latter to continue to offer onboard units (OBU) for NT$680 until February next year.
Far Eastern had insisted that it could only offer OBUs at a low price for another three months before it started charging buyers the full price. The price of an OBU was originally set at NT$1,150, with buyers paying an additional NT$99 installation fee.
Bureau Division Chief Wu Mu-fu (
Wu said the deal expired in February this year. However, the company continued to offer OBUs at NT$680 each without charging motorists the full price. The negotiations helped to extend the special price deal for a full year, he said.
The company, on the other hand, has introduced another installment plan during the negotiations, where motorists can pay the full amount for an OBU in three installments. Motorists, however, are required to pay NT$428 each time and must pay with a credit card designated by Far Eastern.
Additionally, the bureau and the company have also agreed to offer OBUs through various rental plans. The company has also promised to try to form partnerships with auto shops and insurance firms, where free OBUs would be offered to motorists through the purchase of their services.
Actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has “returned home” to Taiwan, and there are no plans to hold a funeral for the TV star who died in Japan from influenza- induced pneumonia, her family said in a statement Wednesday night. The statement was released after local media outlets reported that Barbie Hsu’s ashes were brought back Taiwan on board a private jet, which arrived at Taipei Songshan Airport around 3 p.m. on Wednesday. To the reporters waiting at the airport, the statement issued by the family read “(we) appreciate friends working in the media for waiting in the cold weather.” “She has safely returned home.
A Vietnamese migrant worker on Thursday won the NT$12 million (US$383,590) jackpot on a scratch-off lottery ticket she bought from a lottery shop in Changhua County’s Puyan Township (埔鹽), Taiwan Lottery Co said yesterday. The lottery winner, who is in her 30s and married, said she would continue to work in Taiwan and send her winnings to her family in Vietnam to improve their life. More Taiwanese and migrant workers have flocked to the lottery shop on Sec 2 of Jhangshuei Road (彰水路) to share in the luck. The shop owner, surnamed Chen (陳), said that his shop has been open for just
Global bodies should stop excluding Taiwan for political reasons, President William Lai (賴清德) told Pope Francis in a letter, adding that he agrees war has no winners. The Vatican is one of only 12 countries to retain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and Taipei has watched with concern efforts by Beijing and the Holy See to improve ties. In October, the Vatican and China extended an accord on the appointment of Catholic bishops in China for four years, pointing to a new level of trust between the two parties. Lai, writing to the pope in response to the pontiff’s message on Jan. 1’s
MUST REMAIN FREE: A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would lead to a global conflict, and if the nation blows up, the world’s factories would fall in a week, a minister said Taiwan is like Prague in 1938 facing Adolf Hitler; only if Taiwan remains free and democratic would the world be safe, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. The ministry on Saturday said Corriere della Sera is one of Italy’s oldest and most read newspapers, frequently covers European economic and political issues, and that Wu agreed to an interview with the paper’s senior political analyst Massimo Franco in Taipei on Jan. 3. The interview was published on Jan. 26 with the title “Taiwan like Prague in 1938 with Hitler,” the ministry