Taiwan hopes to secure a deal by the end of this year to purchase property in San Francisco to house its representative office, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official said yesterday.
The ministry has narrowed its choices to three properties to serve as the new location for the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) in San Francisco, Department of General Affairs Director-General Bruce Hung (洪振榮) said.
“It is our hope that we can seal the deal with one of the properties by the end of this year,” Hung told a regular news briefing.
Moving into a new representative office will have to be completed in three years after securing the property based on regulations, he added.
A report on the procurement project that the ministry sent to lawmakers earlier this month for review showed that the ministry is allocating NT$2.2 billion (US$75.5 million) toward buying a property to use as the nation’s representative office in San Francisco.
At present, the ministry pays about US$3 million in annual rent for the office in San Francisco’s financial district at Montgomery Street — a five-minute walk from Chinatown.
To save on rent, the ministry has been searching for a permanent location to house the representative office.
The plan to purchase a San Francisco office property has been approved by the Cabinet for inclusion in the central government’s budget for this year, the ministry said.
TECO in San Francisco is one of 12 Taiwan representative offices in the US, and is in charge of Northern California, Nevada and Utah.
Taiwan has 110 overseas offices, of which only 17 are owned by the government. Since 2002, the ministry has been trying to buy office spaces overseas to save on rent.
TRAVEL CONFERENCE: Representatives from the two countries exchanged views on how to increase tourist numbers, with one identifying individual travel as a trend Taiwan and South Korea aim to increase the number of tourists traveling between the two countries to 3 million, government and tourism industry representatives said at a conference in Hsinchu City yesterday. The annual event was attended by Deputy Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Yen-po (陳彥伯); Tourism Bureau Director-General Chang Shi-chung (張錫聰); Taiwan Visitors Association chairwoman Yeh Chu-lan (葉菊蘭); South Korean Representative to Taiwan Chung Byung-won; Yoon Ji-sook, an official at the South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism; and Korea Association of Travel Agents chairman Oh Chang-hee. Global tourism is expected to soon rebound to between 55 and
HASTY PLAN: Instructors must teach in a language they are not fluent in, while students are forced to learn new subjects in a tongue they do not know, teachers said The National Federation of Teachers Unions (NFTU) yesterday urged the government to thoroughly review its Bilingual 2030 policy, saying it has caused problems in elementary and high schools, and might affect the quality of education in other subjects. The government on March 28 changed its original “Bilingual Nation 2030” plan to the “Bilingual 2030” plan, no longer aiming to turn Taiwan into a Mandarin-English bilingual nation by 2030, NFTU president Hou Chun-liang (侯俊良) told a news conference in Taipei. Despite the change, the policy’s budget, resources and most of its content remain the same, causing unusual scenes on campuses, he said. Cheng Chi-yi
‘STILL RISKY’: The quarantine requirement for arrivals cannot be lifted, as COVID-19 cases have been rising in Europe and the US, the minister of health and welfare said The government might consider dropping a negative COVID-19 test result requirement for travelers from low-risk countries, but lifting the quarantine requirement for inbound travelers is still risky, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday. The CECC on Monday said it does not plan to further loosen border controls soon. National Taiwan University Children’s Hospital superintendent Huang Li-min (黃立民) said the “3+4” quarantine policy separates inbound travelers from family members for only three days, which is not enough to block the spread of the virus, so the government might consider changing it to a “0+7” policy. He also said that it might
Taiwanese singer Miu Chu (朱俐靜) passed away over the weekend after a battle with breast cancer, her family announced yesterday. She was 40 years old. The family wrote on Chu’s Facebook fan page that she died peacefully. “Thank you all for your concern. Miu, who was always full of laughter and always brought people positive energy with her music, left us peacefully on July 3,” the family said. The family asked for privacy at this time and said that details of a memorial service would be announced later. Chu was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2020. She was an alumna of the TV reality show
RSS