The Chunghwa Post yesterday launched a new cross-strait parcel delivery and express mail services, offering fast postal service to the southeast coast of China at cheaper rates.
Teng Tien-lai (鄧添來), director of the Ministry of Transportation and Communication’s post and telecommunications department, said the service was launched following the second cross-strait talks in 2010, in which Taiwan and China reached agreements on air transportation, sea transportation and postal services, as well as on food safety issues.
“The area west of the Taiwan Strait is geographically closer to us, which leaves room for lower service rates,” Teng said. “Provinces such Xinjiang and Tibet are far away from us and the service rates to these areas remain unchanged.”
Prior to the launch of the new service, Taiwanese need to use the international express mail service (EMS) if they want to quickly send their parcels to family members in China. Consumers will be charged identical postal service rates for sending mail or packages to China, whether they are delivered to the western or eastern part of the country.
Cross-strait mail or packages delivered through EMS have averaged about 20,000 a month. Lee Kan-hsiang (李甘祥), director of Chunghwa Post’s department of mail business and operations, said the postage of the newly launched cross-strait postal service was calculated based on delivery costs to different regions in China, which is different from EMS.
Lee said both Taiwan and China agreed to divide China into six postal service regions.
The first service region includes Fujian and Jiangxi provinces.
The majority of Taiwanese businesspeople in China live within the second service region, including Shanghai, as well as Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong and Anhui provinces. The remaining provinces are in the third, fourth, fifth and sixth regions respectively.
The service currently only delivers air mail or packages.
Sea mail services are to be available once all the preparatory work has been completed, Lee said.
Lee added that the new service’s delivery time is comparable to that of EMS, which varies between three and 10 days depending on the service regions. However, the postage costs less than EMS by between NT$92 and NT$390 per mail item or package on average.
Previously, the postage for a 3kg package anywhere in China was NT$840. Under the new service rates, the postage for the package of the same weight would cost only NT$560 if it were delivered to Fujian and NT$623 if it were sent to Shanghai.
Unlike EMS, the new service allows customers to send prescription drugs to their family members in China, provided they include prescriptions from doctors in the packages as well.
The new service will not deliver frozen or other degradable food, Lee added.
Chunghwa Post vice president Chen Tzu-de (陳賜得) said the packages sent through the new service would all be subject to inspection at customs.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS