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Taiping Island wharf to be completed by 2016: legislator

ROC Central News Agency

2013/08/29 21:01:46

Taipei, Aug. 29 (CNA) A wharf that is to be built on Taiping Island in the South China Sea will help to greatly enhance Taiwan's defense capability in that area, when the project is completed in 2016, a ruling party lawmaker said Thursday.

Lin Yu-fang, a member of the Legislature's Foreign and National Defence Committee, said construction of the NT$3.37 billion (US$112.5 million) project will begin in 2014 and an allocation of NT$1 billion has been made in the government's fiscal 2014 budget for it.

He estimated that the wharf will be finished by 2016, two to three years ahead of schedule.

Currently, a broken trestle on Taiping Island is being used to dock coast guard cutters with a displacement 6 tons or less, according to a press release issued by Lin's office.

When the new wharf is completed, navy ships will be able to dock and unload heavy equipment and bulk goods, the lawmaker said.

In addition, some large and medium sized coast guard patrol boats and even some Navy combat ships can be based there, he said.

It means Taiwan will eventually be able to deploy patrol boats and war ships for considerable periods of time in the areas near Taiping Island, Lin said.

He said the new wharf will also help facilitate work on a project to extend the the island's 1,100-meter runway that currently can only accommodate partially loaded C-130H transport aircraft in "extremely good" weather conditions.

The Ministry of Transportation and Communications' National Expressway Engineering Bureau has been commissioned by the Coast Guard Administration to build the wharf, according to Lin.

Taiping, the largest of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, is the only island with fresh water in the much-contested area. China, Vietnam and the Philippines also lay partial or total claim to the South China Sea area.

The island, which lies about 1,600 km from Kaohsiung, is elliptical in shape, 1.4 km long and 0.4 km wide.

(By Chen Wei-ting and S.C. Chang)