The Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) on Monday officially established the Railway Bureau, authorizing it to supervise the construction and oversight of railways nationwide, as well as generate opportunities to export the nation’s railway expertise and technology to other nations.
The new agency was formed by merging the ministry’s Railway Reconstruction Bureau with its Bureau of High Speed Rail.
The Railway Bureau is based in New Taipei City — in the same building as Banciao Railway Station — and opened for business after a ceremony unveiled a plaque bearing the new agency’s name to the public.
The Railway Reconstruction Bureau operated for 40 years, and the Bureau of High Speed Rail for 20, Minister of Transportation and Communications Hochen Tan (賀陳旦) said, adding that the Railway Bureau could draw on resources from both agencies in fulfilling its role.
“It is not only a construction agency, but an enforcer of the laws regulating railway operations,” he said. “It oversees railway operations nationwide and develops the railway industry in cooperation with other government agencies. It not only ensures that the railway service is available to the public, but that railway technology is updated, as well as shared with other nations.”
The bureau must not only recruit government employees, but also retain independent experts to review railway projects, investigate major accidents, research and develop technology and certify the safety of railway systems, Hochen said.
The MOTC and the Ministry of Economic Affairs have produced a list of railway system components that the nation should produce locally, such as the pantographs mounted on the roofs of electric trains, railroad switches and railway signaling systems, he said.
“We have asked the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology and universities to develop these products,” Hochen said. “Combining product development with research would lower development costs and make mass production possible. By producing these components locally, system maintenance costs would be lowered.”
“We could even export these components to other nations,” Hochen added.
Scheduled to begin operations in 2021, a railway technical research and certification institute is one of the organizations that would be overseen by the Railway Bureau.
The institute would be charged with increasing the proportion of locally made railway components used by the Taiwan Railways Administration and light-rail systems from 42 percent to 70 percent within 10 years.
About 15 percent of the components used in the high-speed rail and MRT systems are made locally, the MOTC said, adding that it hopes the Railway Bureau can increase this figure by 3 percent annually.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
Taiwanese singer Jay Chou (周杰倫) plans to take to the courts of the Australian Open for the first time as a competitor in the high-stakes 1 Point Slam. The Australian Open yesterday afternoon announced the news on its official Instagram account, welcoming Chou — who celebrates his 47th birthday on Sunday — to the star-studded lineup of the tournament’s signature warm-up event. “From being the King of Mandarin Pop filling stadiums with his music to being Kato from The Green Hornet and now shifting focus to being a dedicated tennis player — welcome @jaychou to the 1 Point Slam and #AusOpen,” the
RSS