Text of report in English by Taiwanese Central News Agency web site
Taipei, 27 November: The government is planning to integrate the resources of the two state-owned radio stations to set up a multilingual “Voice of Taiwan” radio network to serve foreign nationals in Taiwan, the Government Information Office director-general said Saturday [27 November].
Lin Chia-lung unveiled the plan while addressing a Mandarin and Taiwanese story-telling competition for foreigners hosted by the state-owned Radio Taiwan International (RTI).
Lin pointed out that the RTI, which receives 500m Taiwanese dollars (15.6m US dollars) in government funding every year, is mainly responsible for overseas broadcasting.
To serve foreign nationals residing in Taiwan and help them better understand the island, the government will set up a new radio network by combining the resources of the RTI and the other state-owned radio station, Voice of Han Broadcasting Network, Lin said.
The “Voice of Taiwan” will broadcast programmes in a number of different languages, including Mandarin, Taiwanese, English and Japanese, he said.
(Source: Central News Agency web site, Taipei, in English 1209 gmt 27 Nov 04 via BBC Monitoring)
