Shahd Alhamdan Saudi Gazette TAIPEI — Two ongoing projects in Saudi Arabia initiated by Taiwan in 2011 are in the advanced stage of development and expected to be completed in 2017 as planned. The two projects are a result of the agreements entered into by The International Cooperation and Development Fund (TaiwanICDF) and Saudi Arabia for the improvement of the Kingdom's transportation and agriculture/ fishing sectors. The Transport Technical Cooperation Project aims to improve the safety, monitoring and quality of highway and bridge construction work in Saudi Arabia. The objective of the project is to implement transportation projects in cooperation with the Saudi Ministry of Transportation. The project also is tasked to review the design and quality of completed projects involving roads, bridges and drainage tanks. Under the agreement, TaiwanICDF will dispatch specialists to implement the projects. Meanwhile, the Agriculture and Fisheries Project envisioned the establishment of micropropagation of Saudi Arabia's unique and valuable date palm species, supplying high-quality and healthy seedlings to local farmers to grow. It is aimed at cultivating 200 date palm seedlings by tissue culture and produce a new variety and at the same time manage the 2-hectare date palm garden. It also endeavors to provide Saudi Arabian researchers with guidance on using specific instruments and performing experiments relating to date palm cultivation. Moreover, the project aims to reserve the F1 and F2 broodstock of Camouflage grouper E. polyphekadion, cultivate the Orange-spotted grouper to gonad maturation as broodstock, produce sea bass juveniles for private sector as part of extension, and transfer the larviculture-related technology to local researchers. The cost of implementing this project is estimated at US$1,538,000. In 2015 alone, TaiwanICDF specialists under the Agriculture and Fisheries Project assisted six farmers to culture Asian Sea Bass. Until now 39 sea bass were tagged with biochip. The project also selected 24 tagged orange-spotted grouper as broodstock and the result of contacted gonad investigation for 2 months showed that the oocysts of female fish were well developed and 3 male fish were available. Besides, the project produced 20,500 somatic embryos of in vitro date palm over 20.05 hectares and provided 2,005 plants to local farmers for production of new varieties. The initiative also conducted experiments on commercial varieties of date palm, maintained 12 varieties of date palm in test tubes and managed 200 seedlings in the 2-hectare date palm garden. TaiwanICDF aspires to improve the rural life, upgrade industrial and occupational competitiveness, strengthen cooperation with international organizations and pursue environmentally sustainable forms of development. It facilitates social and economic development in partner countries and promote better economic ties with them. It also cooperates with international organizations, institutions or governments to facilitate social and economic development in its partner countries by providing technical and human resources training and services to foster industrial capacity. It also provides humanitarian assistance to international refugees or countries afflicted by natural disasters.
