Record number of Chinese officials to visit tomorrow

MAC said that among the ranking Chinese tourism officials to fly to Taiwan aboard inaugural cross-strait direct charter flights tomorrow are Shao Qiwei, director of China National Tourism Administration; Zhang Xiqin, deputy director of the tourism administration and president of the Cross-strait Travel Exchange Association; Dai Xiaofong, director of the Department of Exchange of the Taiwan Affairs Office under the State Council; and Fan Quishan, deputy secretary general of the Cross-Strait Travel Exchange Association.

In addition, the upcoming Chinese tourist groups will be accompanied by a total of 60 journalists from mainland China, marking the largest-ever presence in Taiwan of Chinese news media, the MAC continued.

Xinhua News Agency, China National Radio and news media in various provinces and cities will all dispatch reporters and photographers to cover the inaugural cross-straits direct charter flights and direct visits to Taiwan by the first batch of mainland Chinese tourists seen after both sides signed relevant exchange agreements on June 13 this year, the MAC added.

The first six Chinese tour groups to visit Taiwan after the signing of the agreements, to be headed by Shao Qiwei, director of the China National Tourism Administration, will not visit the CKS Mausoleum in Cihu and the CCK Mausoleum in Touliao, although they will visit Dasi of the Taoyuan County, where the two mausoleums are located.

Meanwhile, the groups will also neither tour the Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall (formerly Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall set up to commemorate late President Chiang Kai-shek) nor the Presidential Office during their stay in Taipei, where they will visit the National Palace Museum and the Taipei 101 Tower.

The arriving Chinese tourists will be coming from Beijing, Shanghai, Xiamen, Guangzhou and Nanjing. They will include officials, travel agency representatives and ordinary tourists, Mao noted.

Meanwhile, according to statistics compiled by the National Immigration Agency (NIA) under the Ministry of the Interior, there were a total of 469 mainland Chinese approved to enter Taiwan aboard inaugural cross-strait direct flights on July 4, as of yesterday noon, including 31 officials, 60 journalists and 378 tourists.

But the Tourism Bureau under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications estimated that there would be as many as 687 Chinese tourists to visit Taiwan tomorrow, as two more Chinese travel agencies are expected to file applications this morning at the latest. So fare six such agencies have been approved to lead Chinese tour groups to the island.

The upcoming flight and tourist exchanges agreements across the Taiwan Straits were based on pacts signed between Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and its Chinese counterpart the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) on June 13, when both parties resumed dialogues after a 9-year suspension.

Under the pacts, the two sides decided to launch regular charter flights between Taiwan and China on July 4, and that eight airports in Taiwan’s Kinmen, Penghu, Taipei, Taoyuan, Taichung, Kaohsiung, Hualien and Taitung will be opened for the new service while China opens five terminals in Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Xiamen and Guangzhou.

Initially, the China National Tourism Administration will allow residents in 13 Chinese provinces and municipal cities to visit Taiwan, including Beijing, Tianjin, Liaoning, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Shandong, Hubei, Guangdong, Chongqing, Yunnan, and Shanxi.

Subscribe to The China Post and save 25%. Click here

SharePrintEmail

Write a Comment

Enter your comments - 3000 characters max

Type in image code

Submit

 Receive China Post promos Respond to this email