The Tainan County Government yesterday signed a memorandum of understanding with the Golden Chinese Automobile Corp (
"Pending central government approval, the project is expected to cost US$5 billion to U$10 billion from the private sector to facilitate the goal of building Taiwan into a 24-hour global logistics center," Tainan County Commissioner Su Huan-chih (
"The proposed 1,000-hectare free-trade zone, expandable to 3,000 hectares, will be a tax-free paradise, or mini Hong Kong, to further attract investment from multinational companies," he added.
At the initial stage, NT$30 billion will be raised to build the proposed airport's 4,000m runway in three-and-half years, the DPP commissioner said.
He said the county government will officially submit its plan to the Cabinet next Tuesday.
Su said once the Cabinet gives its go-ahead by the end of February, the local government will open an international bid to invite more multinational contractors, including Golden Chinese Corp, to compete for the county's first build-transfer-build (BOT) project.
Slated to be completed in 2008, the proposed airport will have a capacity of transporting 1.2 million passengers and 120,000 tonnes of cargo per year, said Peng Shao-po (
Welcomed by high-tech companies and biotech and agricultural firms in the nearby Tainan Science-based Industrial Park (
He said that these high-tech companies currently use CKS International Airport to deliver their products.
In the free-trade zone, advanced manufacturing facilities, shopping malls, world trade centers, off-shore banks and hotels will be built to accommodate local and international business people, who will not need a visa, Su said.
Urging the government to approve the project, Tai Chien (
Golden Chinese, the company to express interest in the project, yesterday said that it is confident that it will obtain the rights to the project, and boost Taiwan's ailing economy.
"[The project] will help create probably close to a quarter of a million jobs by early 2004 and a mini-city of half of a million people by 2008," said McMillan Cheng (
Cheng, a former Singaporean banker with the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation Ltd (
The Tainan international airport was initially proposed and later shelved by the Executive Yuan in 1992. In mid-July last year, Premier Yu Shyi-kun, however, agreed to re-evaluate the proposal of the second international airport in southern Taiwan and six months later decided to move forward with the plan.
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