The nation will actively promote free-trade harbor zones to improve its edge in global logistics, and by 2008 there should be at least seven such zones, an unidentified Council for Economic Planning and Development official said yesterday.
The official said that faced with globalization, global logistics management will be the cornerstone of many enterprises.
To keep the nation's edge in global logistics, the government will actively promote free-trade harbor zones, creating the zones in harbors or areas around airports, waiving customs tariffs and commodity and business taxes, streamlining the flow of goods within the zones to create benefits from transshipments and increasing industries' high value-added products, the official said.
The official said that harbor authorities in Kaohsiung, Keelung, Taichung and Taipei, as well as in some export processing zones, have applied to set up free-trade harbor zones. Keelung and Kaohsiung harbors have been approved by the Executive Yuan to operate this month and next January.
There are 10 export processing zones in Taiwan, the official said, and it is estimated that at least two will become free-trade harbors.
Even by the most conservative estimates, he said, there will be seven free trade zones by 2008, with 1,000 manufacturers located in them, employing 31,000 people and creating value of NT$162.5 billion (US$4.779 billion).
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