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Head of Farglory urges hastening of deregulation

The government should accelerate deregulation to enhance the nation’s economic capabilities in logistics and tourism, which would enable it to improve its international competitiveness, Farglory Group (遠雄集團) chairman Chao Teng-hsiung (趙藤雄) said yesterday.

“Taiwan should urgently develop itself into a logistics center, or a so-called value-added island, to maintain its economic competitiveness,” Chao told a media briefing yesterday, adding that the nation’s unemployment rate would also be reduced by boosting the tourism sector.

To facilitate the nation’s development as a logistics center, Chao urged the new government to cut red tape and employ new thinking in the facilitation of the Taoyuan Airport City special economic zone.

He said Taiwan had much catching up to do, since expansion plans for more than 500 of the world’s 1,400 major airports have been put into action.

The building of a free trade zone around the airport would help the nation’s manufacturing sector to retain high-end value-added businesses in Taiwan and prevent another business exodus, he said.

An expanded airport would further gear up the nation to welcome more international and Chinese tourists after July, said Chao, a land developer with 40 years’ experience.

Saying he believed the government would focus on bolstering the local economy, Chao urged the government to urgently relax restrictions on the development of a gambling industry, which he said would further boost the tourism sector.

Chao said that since Macau launched its casinos four years ago, businesses in the city have outperformed those in Las Vegas, with 90 percent of the visitors to Macau’s casinos coming from China, he said.

Taiwan’s overall investment environment is poor, Chao said, because the nation offers fewer incentives than neighboring countries such as South Korea, China and Singapore.

“The government should offer more tax cuts and completely scrap inheritance tax and gift tax,” Chao said.

He has earmarked this year for the group to expand in overseas markets.

In China, the group plans to launch residential projects in Qing­dao, Nanjing and Fuzhou cities, in addition to its current projects in metropolitan Beijing and Shanghai, Chao said.

He added that he also planned to visit the Middle East this month to explore opportunities there.

Domestically, Chao expressed confidence in the group’s real estate businesses, which are estimated to be worth NT$65 billion (US$2.14 billion) this year.

Its real estate subsidiary plans to raise capital totaling NT$2.5 billion by August.

The group’s revenues are likely to hit NT$160 billion this year, up from NT$110 billion last year, he said, adding that the group’s life insurance subsidiary planned to list on the GRETAI Securities Market next year and on the TAIEX in 2010.
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