Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) yesterday asked the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) to start planning for the establishment of a free trade zone in Kaohsiung that connects Kaohsiung Port with Kaohsiung International Airport.
Wu gave the instruction when he visited the MOTC and after being briefed by Minister Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國).
MOTC Deputy Minister Yeh Kuang-shih (葉匡時) said in a press conference after the briefing that Kaohsiung Port was building its sixth terminal.
To expand Kaohsiung Port’s land, Yeh said the ministry was planning to construct an expressway that would connect Kaohsiung Port to Freeway No. 10, which begins in Zuoying (左營) and ends in Cishan (旗山)Kaohsiung County.
“The government will have to use some farmland to build the expressway,” Yeh said. “We estimate that this will help expand the [port’s] area by approximately 200 hectares.”
Yeh said the property expansion would help turn Kaohsiung Port into a hub for value adding, where manufacturers reprocess goods to turn them into more valuable products.
Yeh also said Kaohsiung City Government was planning to expand Kaohsiung International Airport through a land reclamation project.
“The city is considering allowing the Kaohsiung Harbor Bureau to manage the reclaimed land, provided that it acquires some of the bureau’s properties for the city’s development, which will require further negotiations,” he said.
The ministry, however, has not set a specific timeline as to when construction of the expressway would begin, he said.
Meanwhile, the ministry said in its briefing to Wu that it was working with the Ministry of Economic Affairs to start replacing all gasoline-powered motorcycles on the nation’s island communities with electric motorcycles.
Yeh said the measure was proposed in conjunction with the nation’s policy to conserve energy to curb carbon dioxide emissions. The measure, if enacted, will apply to all islands, including Green Island (綠島), Lanyu (蘭嶼) and Liouciou (小琉球), he said.
“At this stage, we aim to use the electric motorcycles to develop eco-tourism in outlying islands,” Yeh said. “We have not talked about when the policy will apply to motorcyclists on Taiwan proper.”
When asked about the possibility of switching to electric cars, Yeh said the technology had not developed enough and the government could have problems implementing such a policy. The government may consider giving motorcycle owners incentives to switch, he said.
In addition to the policies on the free trade zone in Kaohsiung and electric motorcycles, Wu asked the ministry to complete a double-track rail system on the East Coast.
The MOTC should also respond to the needs of East Coast residents by constructing an alternative route to the highway that connects Suao (蘇澳) and Hualien, Wu said.
Wu on Tuesday said the Executive Yuan would complete a feasibility study on constructing an alternative to the mountain section of the controversial Suhua freeway.
The disputed Suhua freeway was proposed more than a decade ago to connect Yilan and Hualien counties.
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
‘SIGN OF DANGER’: Beijing has never directly named Taiwanese leaders before, so China is saying that its actions are aimed at the DPP, a foundation official said National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) yesterday accused Beijing of spreading propaganda, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had singled out President William Lai (賴清德) in his meeting with US President Joe Biden when talking about those whose “true nature” seek Taiwanese independence. The Biden-Xi meeting took place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday. “If the US cares about maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, it is crucial that it sees clearly the true nature of Lai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in seeking Taiwanese independence, handles the Taiwan question with extra
RSS