The Kaohsiung Exhibition and Convention Center, set to open next year, is expected to create up to 30,000 jobs a year after 10 years in operation, the center’s operator said yesterday.
After seven years of planning and two years under construction, the center is scheduled to open in April for the annual Taiwan International Fastener Show, Kaohsiung Exhibition Center Corp president Michael Tu (涂建國) told a press conference.
Other shows scheduled for next year are the Taiwan International Boat Show in May and the Kaohsiung Food Show in October, Tu added.
Established to provide a venue for expo organizers in the south, the center will be able to host more than 30 exhibitions a year and create about 1,000 jobs for each event, Tu said.
“The center is also helpful to the nation’s meetings, incentives, conferencing and exhibitions [MICE] industry,” he said.
“We expect to enhance Greater Kaohsiung’s competitiveness [with the opening of the center] and reinvigorate Kaohsiung Harbor,” he added.
Kaohsiung Exhibition Center Corp will be managing the center’s daily operation for 12-and-a-half-years starting next year, according to a contract the company signed with the Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday.
Tu said the company plans to invest NT$250 million (US$8.34 million) to upgrade the center in the coming years and aims to generate up to NT$3.4 billion in return on investment by the end of 2026.
The center also hopes to differentiate itself from the Taipei World Trade Center by offering better management with lower carbon emissions, he said.
Meanwhile, Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) chairman Wang Chih-kang (王志剛) said he expected the Kaohsiung center to help develop Greater Kaohsiung into an internationally renowned city featuring its local MICE industry.
“I’ve been worried about Taiwan’s MICE industry, having seen how China and Hong Kong have added more expo centers to exhibit China-made products,” Wang said.
He said the center is also crucial to balance economic development in the north and south and should be beneficial to Greater Kaohsiung’s yacht-building industry and tourism.
The economics ministry initiated the center project in 2006, which costs up to NT$3 billion. The center has a total floor area of 67,000m2, which can accommodate 1,424 exhibition booths and different meeting room sizes suitable for up to 4,000 people, the company said.
Taiwan’s rapidly aging population is fueling a sharp increase in homes occupied solely by elderly people, a trend that is reshaping the nation’s housing market and social fabric, real-estate brokers said yesterday. About 850,000 residences were occupied by elderly people in the first quarter, including 655,000 that housed only one resident, the Ministry of the Interior said. The figures have nearly doubled from a decade earlier, Great Home Realty Co (大家房屋) said, as people aged 65 and older now make up 20.8 percent of the population. “The so-called silver tsunami represents more than just a demographic shift — it could fundamentally redefine the
The US government on Wednesday sanctioned more than two dozen companies in China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, including offshoots of a US chip firm, accusing the businesses of providing illicit support to Iran’s military or proxies. The US Department of Commerce included two subsidiaries of US-based chip distributor Arrow Electronics Inc (艾睿電子) on its so-called entity list published on the federal register for facilitating purchases by Iran’s proxies of US tech. Arrow spokesman John Hourigan said that the subsidiaries have been operating in full compliance with US export control regulations and his company is discussing with the US Bureau of
Businesses across the global semiconductor supply chain are bracing themselves for disruptions from an escalating trade war, after China imposed curbs on rare earth mineral exports and the US responded with additional tariffs and restrictions on software sales to the Asian nation. China’s restrictions, the most targeted move yet to limit supplies of rare earth materials, represent the first major attempt by Beijing to exercise long-arm jurisdiction over foreign companies to target the semiconductor industry, threatening to stall the chips powering the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. They prompted US President Donald Trump on Friday to announce that he would impose an additional
Pegatron Corp (和碩), a key assembler of Apple Inc’s iPhones, on Thursday reported a 12.3 percent year-on-year decline in revenue for last quarter to NT$257.86 billion (US$8.44 billion), but it expects revenue to improve in the second half on traditional holiday demand. The fourth quarter is usually the peak season for its communications products, a company official said on condition of anonymity. As Apple released its new iPhone 17 series early last month, sales in the communications segment rose sequentially last month, the official said. Shipments to Apple have been stable and in line with earlier expectations, they said. Pegatron shipped 2.4 million notebook
RSS