Taiwan and Israel signed an aviation agreement on Monday, as part of their efforts to establish closer ties between the two countries following a visa-waiver agreement that took effect in August last year, officials from both sides said yesterday.
“Although the number of tourists would not justify direct air services, I think this will happen because we have seen a lot of progress in recent months,” said Ophia Gore, director of economic affairs at the Israel Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei.
Gore said the number of Taiwanese travelers to Israel has increased by 20 to 30 percent since the introduction of a visa-free regime for Republic of China nationals.
Photo: CNA, courtesy of the Israel Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the number of bilateral visits by businesspeople and tourists was estimated at 7,000 in 2010.
“It’s still a pretty low number,” Gore said, but added he expected carriers would be interested in launching direct air services a few months or a few years later “because the visa-waiver treatment will bring more tourists from Israel to Taiwan and vice versa.”
The pact would allow carriers from the two countries to use each other’s airspace to provide services for passengers or freight and to set up offices in their respective countries. It also regulates carriers’ operations, covering tariffs, the number of flights, capacity, rules on fair competition and business opportunities.
Lin Jinn-jong (林進忠), director-general of the Department of West Asian Affairs, said the aviation pact, which follows an agreement on double-taxation avoidance and preventing tax evasion in 2009 and last year’s visa-waiver agreement, was testimony to significant progress in bilateral relations in recent years.
Taiwan and Israel recently also reached a consensus over the establishment of a working group to study the feasibility of signing a free-trade agreement by next year.
Government statistics show bilateral trade totaled NT$28.1 billion (US$927.4 million) in the first eight months of last year, up more than 17 percent from the previous year.
The aviation pact was signed at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Tel Aviv by Taiwanese Representative to Israel Chang Liang-jen (張良任) and Israeli Representative to Taiwan Simona Halperin on behalf of their respective governments.
Taiwan’s Civil Aeronautics Administration said there was no carrier providing direct passenger-flight services between Taiwan and the Middle East, while direct cargo flights are available from Taiwan to Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its