The nation has recorded a double-digit growth in the number of registered yachts, dedicated yacht berths and yacht operating licenses issued in the past five years, the Maritime and Port Bureau said yesterday.
The bureau said it has in the past few years improved the port infrastructure and service for yachts across the nation in line with its vision to create and boost a “blue tourism and recreation economy.”
From 2021 to last year, the number of yacht operating licenses increased 57 percent to 31,637, while the number of registered yachts rose 35 percent to 1,636, bureau data showed.
Photo: Tsai Yun-jung, Taipei Times
As of last year, 1,437 parking spaces were available for yachts across the nation, up 38 percent from 2021, the bureau said.
Twenty-eight more parking spaces for yachts would be available this year, it added.
The bureau attributed the significant increase in yacht-related indicators to the continual improvement of the Taiwan Yacht Portal (https://yachtintaiwan.azurewebsites.net/En/), which has offered one-stop service to more than 8.4 million users.
The bureau said that more people have been motivated to try operating yachts after it shared a video on YouTube, which has drawn 34,000 views.
It said that it aims to further boost yacht activities this year in seaports and fishing ports by introducing around-the-island and island-hopping yacht tours.
Taiwan ranked fourth globally in terms of orders for large power yachts in 2023, and 73.1 percent of its yacht exports that year were shipped to the US, an industry report by the RINAutic magazine showed.
Taiwan’s yacht production value rose to about NT$6.8 billion (US$213.27 million) in the first 10 months of 2023, official data showed.
In the same year, total orders for large yachts were 87.9 percent higher than in 2018.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
RSS