A much simpler way of doing currency conversions - online currency converters:
You HAVE! :fume:
Not Good Enough! 
I DEMAND that you fly the US flag ( :America: ) with smilies on both sides.
The US flag should be tattooed on both your butts??
TWD $11.2 billion is approximately 1/7 of the total yearly tax revenue of Taiwan. Seems like a lot to pay especially when goods and services can already travel between Kinmen and China on a boat in around 20 minutes.
Still, if 400,000 trips are really taken between the two each year, they would have to charge TWD$50,000 or something like that per trip to make back that money in a year. And it would be cheap to outsource the bureaucratic work to some low-paid Chinese laborers, since most Taiwanese people that I know dislike having to work in Kinmen, since it’s mostly natural preservation area and nothing else to do but drink alcoholic beverages from the enormously profitable Kinmen Kaoliang Liquor Inc.
They were saying that it takes about an hour to get there, so a road would be an improvement, less time, and the Kinmen magistrate saying how ties with China wil benefit the island and :blah:
Did I say, “I hate to nitpick?” Well, this is the second time in this thread that I have questioned the numbers.
Is it possible that the total yearly tax revenue in Taiwan is TWD78 billion? (US$2.4 billion?) That is hard for me to believe. That works out to about NT$3,350 per person per year (pop = 23 million). If the average person is paying US$100 per year, I am paying much more than my share.
Can anyone give us the real numbers?
Did I say, “I hate to nitpick?” Well, this is the second time in this thread that I have questioned the numbers.
Is it possible that the total yearly tax revenue in Taiwan is TWD78 billion? (US$2.4 billion?) That is hard for me to believe. That works out to about NT$3,350 per person per year (pop = 23 million). If the average person is paying US$100 per year, I am paying much more than my share.
Can anyone give us the real numbers?[/quote]
Nobody has the real numbers (US$30 million does not equal TW$10 billion, right?):
“The bridge, depending how it will be built, would cost about NT$10 billion (US$30 million) and would link up the nearest points of Kinmen and Xiamen.” http://www.taiwannews.com.tw/etn/news_content.php?id=856888 But all this inaccuracy makes me wonder how much different the actual cost of the bridge is going to be. The 8 km long Sutong Bridge in China cost EUD$1.3 billion. How are they going to make this bridge so cheap? http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/amazing-bridges-around-world/6785 And the 4 km long bridge across the Red Sea is expected to cost US$4 billion http://enr.construction.com/news/intl/archives/070501.asp. I’m not a civil engineer, but judging by the prices of other bridges I would imagine that this bridge is going to cost closer to US$10 billion than TWD$10 billion.
By the way the tax revenues for Taiwan may have been TWD$1.6 trillion in 2007. cens.com/cens/html/zh/news/news_inner_21620.html
But for 2008 the picture will not be so rosy because of massive losses in the stock market.
[quote=“twocs”]
Nobody has the real numbers (US$30 million does not equal TW$10 billion, right?):
"The bridge, depending how it will be built, would cost about NT$10 billion (US$30 million)[/quote]
For sure US$30 million does NOT equal NT$10 billion. It equals NT$1 billion.
So who knows how much this bridge will really cost, eh?
I’m with you in guessing it’s going to be very expensive.
You HAVE! :fume:
Not Good Enough!
I DEMAND that you fly the US flag ( :America: ) with smilies on both sides.[/quote]
There really is no pleasing somepeople is there?
Here you go:
:America:
Well you asked for 2 smilies either side of the US flag and someone else mentioned both my butts so…
How did you know I have two butts…
Ah… we really are starting to digress a bit 
Again, I haven’t really been paying much attention to the exchange rates so both my English pound and US dollar calculations were wrong… but it’s no big deal.
I’m wondering shouldn’t China pay at least half the price?
I was kinda expectin’ 
:America:
Anyway, your apology is accepted.
I don’t want to nitpick, but building a bridge from China to Jinmen isn’t going to lead to the fall of Taiwan. Possibly the fall of Jinmen, but the island is so close to China (and so far from Taiwan) that the Reds could’ve swum there years ago if they wanted the damn thing.
Financially? Couldn’t think of a bigger waste of money. No one heard of boats? What’s wrong with boats? I love boats.
I don’t want to nitpick, but building a bridge from China to Jinmen isn’t going to lead to the fall of Taiwan. Possibly the fall of Jinmen, but the island is so close to China (and so far from Taiwan) that the Reds could’ve swum there years ago if they wanted the damn thing.
Financially? Couldn’t think of a bigger waste of money. No one heard of boats? What’s wrong with boats? I love boats.[/quote]
Well, it could all just be a ploy to distract everyone’s attention from the tunnel China ‘could’ be digging all the way to Taiwan…
I don’t think there’s any way you can justify a bridge from an economic standpoint. If Chinese tourists were desperately trying to get to Kinmen to spend money boat service could be set up instantly. Just how much Kinmen non-presidential memorial kaoliang, beef jerky, and peanut cookies does Kinmen need to truck over to the Mainland? This seems to be driven more by political ideology than economic merit.
How about using the bridge to transport merchandise? Would it be profitable, then?
How about transit to Mainland? Do we have enough flights to Xiamen? Would the number of Taiwanese factories in Xiamen justify having this bridge to expedite transfer?
How about residents? Do we have enough Taiwanese in Xiamen to have them, let’s say, have their kids go to school in Kinmen everyday, back and forth, like people do crossing the Mexican border everyday to go to school and such?
Still, the economic “merit” seems to benefit the Mainland more than Taiwan, even Kinmen itself. I stil believe construction companies -gee, how coincidental gravel is now under PRC’s control- would be the ones getting the most benefit out of this deal.
If the Jinmen residents want to be so strongly connected with China, then give Jinmen (and probably Matsu as well) back to China, for its certainly not a historical part of Taiwan, and they can build their own waste of money. and then Taiwan can get on with being Taiwan, China can feel whole again, and the borders can be settled somewhat more meaningfully than before finalising a peace deal between the two countries. (not that there’s a snowflake in hell’s chance of that happening with Mayor Ma in the driving seat, and especially since he’s not actually the one driving this cab).
who drinks Jinmen gaoliang anyway? horrid stuff. the mainland YuShan Gaoliang is much better. (mainland as in the mainland of Taiwan, not the China mainland, you nitpickers.)
[quote=“Icon”]How about using the bridge to transport merchandise? Would it be profitable, then?[/quote] Well, Kinmen is a nice place to visit actually - it’s pretty much a sleepy and mostly agricultural island. The Kinmen distillery is probably the biggest business on the island. I would imagine that a substantial part of the economy is currently based on tourism from Taiwan. There are a lot of soldiers there, and a large military installation on the mountain. I don’t know what goods that Kinmen needs badly enough from Xiamen in large enough quantity to require a bridge. Same for goods from Kinmen to Xiamen. Unless there are plans for a casino or something like that which would (possibly) draw large numbers of tourists from the Mainland. I think there are a lot more historical sites on Taiwan that would be of interest to Mainland Chinese tourists, and if this is targeting tourists then how about putting it into infrastructure in Taiwan such as refurbishing Songshan airport or that nasty/vintage Terminal 1 at the Taoyuan airport?
In 1949 communist troops crossed over from the Mainland by fishing boats and overran about half of Kinmen before being repulsed by Nationalist troops. The Guningtou Battle Museum is actually pretty interesting and even has CKS’s jeep there. But I wouldn’t expect it to draw hordes of tourists…
kinmen.gov.tw/Layout/sub_D/A … lang=en-us
[quote=“urodacus”]who drinks Jinmen gaoliang anyway? [/quote] Ummmmm, I do… 
It has a bite to it but if you give it a chance it grows on you - especially if it’s 3+ years old - it is smoother. It’s far better than any of the Mainland liquors I have tried such as Wu Liang Yi, etc. (well, Kweichow Mou Tai is good but it’s expensive plus you have to be careful you are not getting a fake… Although the same concern exists in Taiwan for Kinmen Kaoliang.). I would prefer that they build a Kaoliang pipeline from Kinmen to Taiwan and bottle it locally to save freight costs!!!
[quote=“TaipeiDawg”][quote=“Icon”]How about using the bridge to transport merchandise? Would it be profitable, then?[/quote] Well, Kinmen (Jinmen) is a nice place to visit actually - it’s pretty much a sleepy and mostly agricultural island. The Kinmen (Jinmen) distillery is probably the biggest business on the island. I would imagine that a substantial part of the economy is currently based on tourism from Taiwan. There are a lot of soldiers there, and a large military installation on the mountain. I don’t know what goods that Kinmen (Jinmen) needs badly enough from Xiamen in large enough quantity to require a bridge. Same for goods from Kinmen (Jinmen) to Xiamen. Unless there are plans for a casino or something like that which would (possibly) draw large numbers of tourists from the Mainland. I think there are a lot more historical sites on Taiwan that would be of interest to Mainland Chinese tourists, and if this is targeting tourists then how about putting it into infrastructure in Taiwan such as refurbishing Songshan airport or that nasty/vintage Terminal 1 at the Taoyuan airport?
In 1949 communist troops crossed over from the Mainland by fishing boats and overran about half of Kinmen (Jinmen) before being repulsed by Nationalist troops. The Guningtou Battle Museum is actually pretty interesting and even has CKS’s jeep there. But I wouldn’t expect it to draw hordes of tourists…
Kinmen (Jinmen).gov.tw/Layout/sub_D/AllInOne_en_Show.aspx?path=7122&guid=d9b6a387-7651-461e-81fd-e123dc634433&lang=en-us[/quote]
Ehem, I meant, aside from tourism, what else can we milk this bridge for? We know Kinmen is an undiscovered, virgin tourist gem -better keep it like that- but how about transit hub of merchandise? Could it be profitable to use it as transfer center between Mainland and Taiwan?