Following plans to build a tennis center, the Taipei City Government yesterday announced it intends to establish a basketball center as a new venue for professional basketball games and international sports events.
The 8,000-seat basketball center would cost the city government NT$2 billion (US$600 million).
A 35,000m² site, previously set aside for an elementary school next to the Da’an Sports Center, has been selected for the development.
PHOTO: CNA
PROMOTING BASKETBALL
Announcing the project at Taipei City Hall, Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) said the city government is seeking to promote basketball and other sports with the establishment of the basketball center in addition to the tennis center.
“As the nation’s capital, Taipei must offer sports venues that reach international standards and with the construction of the tennis and basketball centers, we hope to cultivate more talent while hosting more international games,” Hau said.
Taipei has launched a bid to host the 2019 Asian Games and intends to compete for the 2017 East Asian Games.
TENNIS CENTER
Earlier this month, the city government announced plans to build a tennis center, on par with international standards, in Neihu District (內湖).
Both the basketball and tennis facilities are scheduled to be completed by 2014.
Hau said that with a declining birth rate, the city would use more land set aside for elementary schools for other purposes.
Chinese Taipei Basketball Association director Mao Kao-wen (毛高文) and several professional basketball players from the Super Basketball League (SBL) yesterday attended the press conference and endorsed the government’s plan.
“We have been practicing at various venues and it is great news for us to have a practice venue in downtown Taipei,” SBL player Lee Hsueh-lin (李學林) said.
PRO VENUE NEEDED
Mao said the city has lacked a professional basketball venue ever since the ROC Stadium burned down 22 years ago, adding that the basketball center would be a boost to the sport.
Taipei City Sports Office director Sun Chin-chuan (孫清泉) said the land where the former stadium once stood, which is located on Nanjing E Road near Taipei Arena, belonged to a private business, and the city government had been negotiating with the land owner to build a stadium or a cultural facility on the site.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS