During a meeting with shipbuilders in Kaohsiung yesterday, president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said that she is determined to have naval vessels built locally.
Accompanied by Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊), policy director Chang Ching-sen (張景森) and Taiwan Institute of Economic Research vice president Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫), Tsai met with more than 20 shipbuilding business operators in a closed meeting.
“The national defense industry is one of the ‘five innovative industries’ and building naval vessels, especially submarines, is important,” Tsai told a news conference after the meeting. “We are not just talking, our policy team did its research before we started our tour around the nation to meet with representatives from each industry and we have some rough ideas already.”
Tsai said that the development of the national defense industry should go hand-in-hand with overall economic development and national defense capacity should be built up through innovation.
Taiwan had once ranked sixth globally in number of shipbuilding orders, she said.
Her plan would include reviving Kaohsiung’s once-prosperous shipbuilding industry through building naval vessels, followed by exploration of overseas markets, Tsai said.
Chen said that Kaohsiung, was once the center of shipbuilding in Taiwan, and the city welcomes Tsai’s plan to support the industry with government resources, since the industry has been fighting alone for too long.
Jong Shyn Shipbuilding chairman Han Pi-hsiang (韓碧祥), who is also the president of the Shipbuilders’ Association of Taiwan, welcomed Tsai’s determination.
“[Tsai’s plan] is like a heart-strengthening injection for the shipbuilding industry,” Han said. “In past decades, governments have repeatedly promised to build naval vessels, but their promises were never fulfilled, I hope they are realized this time.”
Global bodies should stop excluding Taiwan for political reasons, President William Lai (賴清德) told Pope Francis in a letter, adding that he agrees war has no winners. The Vatican is one of only 12 countries to retain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and Taipei has watched with concern efforts by Beijing and the Holy See to improve ties. In October, the Vatican and China extended an accord on the appointment of Catholic bishops in China for four years, pointing to a new level of trust between the two parties. Lai, writing to the pope in response to the pontiff’s message on Jan. 1’s
A Vietnamese migrant worker on Thursday won the NT$12 million (US$383,590) jackpot on a scratch-off lottery ticket she bought from a lottery shop in Changhua County’s Puyan Township (埔鹽), Taiwan Lottery Co said yesterday. The lottery winner, who is in her 30s and married, said she would continue to work in Taiwan and send her winnings to her family in Vietnam to improve their life. More Taiwanese and migrant workers have flocked to the lottery shop on Sec 2 of Jhangshuei Road (彰水路) to share in the luck. The shop owner, surnamed Chen (陳), said that his shop has been open for just
TAKE BREAKS: A woman developed cystitis by refusing to get up to use the bathroom while playing mahjong for fear of disturbing her winning streak, a doctor said People should stand up and move around often while traveling or playing mahjong during the Lunar New Year holiday, as prolonged sitting can lead to cystitis or hemorrhoids, doctors said. Yuan’s General Hospital urologist Lee Tsung-hsi (李宗熹) said that he treated a 63-year-old woman surnamed Chao (趙) who had been sitting motionless and holding off going to the bathroom, increasing her risk of bladder infection. Chao would drink beverages and not urinate for several hours while playing mahjong with friends and family, especially when she was on a winning streak, afraid that using the bathroom would ruin her luck, he said. She had
MUST REMAIN FREE: A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would lead to a global conflict, and if the nation blows up, the world’s factories would fall in a week, a minister said Taiwan is like Prague in 1938 facing Adolf Hitler; only if Taiwan remains free and democratic would the world be safe, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. The ministry on Saturday said Corriere della Sera is one of Italy’s oldest and most read newspapers, frequently covers European economic and political issues, and that Wu agreed to an interview with the paper’s senior political analyst Massimo Franco in Taipei on Jan. 3. The interview was published on Jan. 26 with the title “Taiwan like Prague in 1938 with Hitler,” the ministry
RSS