Supply and demand in the nation’s sand and gravel market has gradually begun to return to equilibrium, Minister Without Portfolio Wu Tze-cheng (吳澤成) said on Monday.
Wu, who chairs the Public Construction Commission, made the remark in a briefing to the Legislative Yuan’s Transportation Committee about the commission’s operations.
Many lawmakers expressed concerns over reported shortages of sand and gravel nationwide.
The problem was mainly caused by a postponement of dredging of the Gaoping River (高屏溪), which led to a shortage of sand and gravel in southern Taiwan, Wu said.
The shortage was also exacerbated by suppliers replacing older gravel trucks, leaving them with insufficient trucks to transport the materials, he said.
The supply of sand and gravel from the Gaoping River resumed on Jan. 10 after the Pingtung County Government restarted dredging, he added.
As for a shortage of sand and gravel in northern Taiwan, Wu said that the commission has asked the Ministry of Economic Affairs to increase the amount of the materials transported from eastern Taiwan.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications is to help facilitate the transportation of sand and gravel by speeding up processing at the Port of Taipei, he said.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Yeh Yi-jin (葉宜津) said that most of the sand and gravel used in northern Taiwan is imported from China, which — along with Southeast Asian countries — has reduced exports of the materials.
Taiwan must be self-reliant in this regard, Yeh said.
There are 30,000 construction projects in Taiwan each year, which the commission should prioritize based on importance, region and launch date to avoid strain due to a lack of resources in one area, DPP Legislator Lee Kun-tse (李昆澤) said, adding that failure to do so could delay all construction.
Despite the slight improvements in supply, a commission report provided to the committee showed that it has yet to fully meet demand for sand and gravel.
The amount of sand and gravel extracted from the Gaoping River last year fell by 1.94 million tonnes, while the inventories of the materials in southern Taiwan from May to December last year decreased by 6 million tonnes, the report said.
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
The Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s license has expired and it cannot simply be restarted, the Executive Yuan said today, ahead of national debates on the nuclear power referendum. The No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County was disconnected from the nation’s power grid and completely shut down on May 17, the day its license expired. The government would prioritize people’s safety and conduct necessary evaluations and checks if there is a need to extend the service life of the reactor, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference. Lee said that the referendum would read: “Do
RSS