The building at the Chingshui Rest Area (清水休息區) on Freeway No. 3 is safe and is equipped with all the required fire safety equipment, the Taiwan Area National Freeway Bureau said yesterday.
The bureau’s statement yesterday followed a Next Magazine story this week alleging the bureau allowed the building’s contractor — Hsin Tung Yang, a large food company — to expand the facility without securing the necessary permits.
The bureau’s deputy chief engineer Wu Mu-fu (吳木富) said that the Chingshui Rest Area’s contractor has submitted an application to expand or remodel the facilities. The building also passed an inspection for fire safety installations and certification for the completed construction.
Wu, said, however, that the contractor applied to expand the existing facility by adding a roof-top restaurant last August.
“We asked that the contractor pass an environmental impact review before it began construction, but it did not listen,” Wu said, adding that the bureau has fined the contractor twice for the violation and barred the company from opening the restaurant.
Wu denied allegations that the bureau intended to cover up the problem and said that the contractor would have to apply for construction and user permits.
Hsin Tung Yang also promised yesterday to quickly complete all the necessary procedures. However, it said it had hired specialists to review the structure of the building before it started construction of the rooftop restaurant.
The building is safe to use, it said.
There are 77 incidents of Taiwanese travelers going missing in China between January last year and last month, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) said. More than 40 remain unreachable, SEF Secretary-General Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉) said on Friday. Most of the reachable people in the more than 30 other incidents were allegedly involved in fraud, while some had disappeared for personal reasons, Luo said. One of these people is Kuo Yu-hsuan (郭宇軒), a 22-year-old Taiwanese man from Kaohsiung who went missing while visiting China in August. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office last month said in a news statement that he was under investigation
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Taiwan was listed in 14th place among the world's wealthiest country in terms of GDP per capita, in the latest rankings released on Monday by Forbes magazine. Taiwan's GDP per capita was US$76,860, which put it at No. 14 on the list of the World's 100 Richest Countries this year, one spot above Hong Kong with US$75,130. The magazine's list of the richest countries in the world is compiled based on GDP per capita data, as estimated by the IMF. However, for a more precise measure of a nation's wealth, the magazine also considers purchasing power parity, which is a metric used to
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