Taiwan's Air and Ocean Transport Records Hit New Highs in 2013

With the government's efforts to turn Taiwan into a world-caliber logistics hub paying off, the island's air and ocean transport records showed encouraging results last year.

According to statistics compiled by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC), the Taoyuan International Airport handled 30.7 million passengers last year, when Taiwan's total air passenger volume hit 48.83 million, both record highs, partly thanks to new routes opened by airlines to link ever more cities between Taiwan and China, which, in turn, helped drive the number of Chinese tourists to Taiwan to a record high of over 8.01 million persons in the same year as a new high.

Meanwhile, with the Kaohsiung Port becoming an LME (London Metal Exchange) delivery point, or the first one in Greater China, to significantly enhance transit of containers of metals for futures trading conducted on the platform, Taiwan's overall container handling in commercial ports reached an all-time high of 14.05 million TEUs (twenty-equivalent unit).

Constructing passenger service centers and related facilities in commercial ports, MOTC also witnessed Taiwan's cruise passenger traffic hit a record high of 992,000 people last year, with the figure expected to exceed 1 million persons this year.

Noteworthy is that with transportation development continuously improving to attract more foreign visitors and benefit local tourism and related sectors, Taiwan's overall foreign exchange revenue from tourists last year was estimated at NT$374.2 billion, making MOTC more confident that tourism will become the island's economic driver in the short term. (SC)