July 18, 2004
To facilitate cargo shipping across the Strait, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) agreed recently to open two more offshore transshipment ports from Kaohsiung Harbor to include Taichung and Keelung harbors.
At the same time, an announcement was made that ships carrying the flags of foreign countries will be able to dock at harbors in Taiwan and mainland China during a single voyage, and will be able to load export and import cargo from mainland China and third areas, without having to pass through a harbor in third area. However, the carrying of Taiwan cargo bound for the mainland, and of mainland cargo bound for Taiwan, will remain banned. Shipping between Taichung Harbor and mainland Chinese harbors via east-west shipping routs will, for the time being, remained banned as well, and ships will have to travel from Taichung to Fuzhou or Xiamen harbors in the mainland by sailing either north or south.
The MOTC stress that if the mainland Chinese authorities agree to relax related restrictions in the future, then the operations of the Offshore Transshipment Centers will be expanded to include the entry of goods from the centers into Taiwan.
This latest deregulation follows a similar expansion, announced on Oct. 31, 2001, of the function and business scope of Offshore Transshipment Centers. A ship sailing from Kaohsiung to Shanghai, to cite just one example, will be able to save 16-27 hours of sailing time under the new rules.
The newly announced liberalization has drawn an enthusiastic response from the corporate sector, with numerous domestic and foreign shipping companies, including Evergreen Marine, APL of the United States, and Maersk of Denmark, applying for permission to sail from Kaohsiung Harbor to mainland Chinese harbors (Yantian, Shanghai, Ningbo, and others) other than Fuzhou and Xiamen, and actually inaugurating routes. The first cargo ship to use Keelung harbor's offshore transshipment center for Shanghai was inaugurated recently. The cargo ship belongs to the German shipping company Hamburg Sud.
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