I'm pretty sure it stands for 'Buy - Operate - Transfer'. I hadn't heard the term either until a couple years ago. Apparently, it's a growing trend in Taiwan for construction of government projects. It seems to me to be just a new way to rip off the taxpayer while giving the bureaucrats yet another means for getting fat kickbacks.

I think it works like this. The govt. wants to build, oh, let's say an illegal hotel on public property. Or, another real life example here in Taitung, they want to build a new campus for a public university. It's expensive, so they allow a private company to build and operate the project for a profit for X number of years, at which point the project is returned to the government.

It actually means 'Build Operate Transfer'. It's meant to be used for things like public infrastructure, such as high-speed rail lines, not for allowing mega-rich land developers to exploit public assets like the coast-line.

They have a 50 year lease - with a reported monthly rent of just a piddling $10 000 per month for 6 hectares of some of the best beach frontage in Taiwan - most people in Taipei would be paying more than that for a bed-sitter apartment.

And i'd have a big question mark over the 'transfer' part. In fifty years time is the govt really going to take back and start running dozens of hotels all along the east coast? I doubt it.