Studio prices in Taipei’s popular school districts have risen to a new high as Taiwanese parents seek to win residency qualifications for their children following the introduction of the 12-year compulsory education program, Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) said yesterday.
Several pre-sale studio units in the city’s Daan District (大安) were traded at NT$1.6 million (US$53,000) per ping (3.3m2) in June, according to the government’s real-price transaction data released yesterday.
Studios that measure between 8.6 ping and 12.56 ping cost between NT$12.8 million and NT$20.5 million, data showed.
“Studios of such size are too small to house a family, but enable residents to win qualification for their children to go to schools in the vicinity,” Taiwan Realty spokeswoman Charlene Chang (張旭嵐) said.
Many students vie to study at Affiliated Senior High School of National Taiwan Normal University, known as HSNU, one of the highest-ranking high schools in Taiwan.
The competition to get into HSNU is fierce, as the High-School Entrance Exam scores of admitted students are typically among the top 3 percent in the country.
However, this year, many students won admission without the entrance exam thanks to the extension of compulsory education to 12 years from the previous nine, Chang said.
Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) promised to keep the exam-free admission ratio at more than 50 percent in the future, after parents and students called for reform in protests over the new entrance mechanism.
Concerns over school districts aside, studios in Daan District might benefit from capital gains, given their close proximity to Daan Forest Park and with the MRT Xinyi Line now in service, Chang said.
However, prominent owners of luxury homes are seeking to cash out as the government deepens credit controls and other tightening measures.
Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控) chairman Daniel Tsai (蔡明忠) and his brother Richard Tsai (蔡明興) sold three luxury housing apartments in downtown Taipei in May, data showed.
Hsu Hsien-hsien (許嫺嫺), the wife of Shin Kong Financial Holding Co (新光金控) chairman Eugene Wu (吳東進), sold a luxury apartment in June.
Kwong Fong Industries Group (廣豐實業) chairman Ho Ming-yu (賀鳴玉) also sold an apartment unit in the Palace complex (帝寶) on Renai Road (仁愛路) according to government data.
When Lika Megreladze was a child, life in her native western Georgian region of Guria revolved around tea. Her mother worked for decades as a scientist at the Soviet Union’s Institute of Tea and Subtropical Crops in the village of Anaseuli, Georgia, perfecting cultivation methods for a Georgian tea industry that supplied the bulk of the vast communist state’s brews. “When I was a child, this was only my mum’s workplace. Only later I realized that it was something big,” she said. Now, the institute lies abandoned. Yellowed papers are strewn around its decaying corridors, and a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin
UNIFYING OPPOSITION: Numerous companies have registered complaints over the potential levies, bringing together rival automakers in voicing their reservations US President Donald Trump is readying plans for industry-specific tariffs to kick in alongside his country-by-country duties in two weeks, ramping up his push to reshape the US’ standing in the global trading system by penalizing purchases from abroad. Administration officials could release details of Trump’s planned 50 percent duty on copper in the days before they are set to take effect on Friday next week, a person familiar with the matter said. That is the same date Trump’s “reciprocal” levies on products from more than 100 nations are slated to begin. Trump on Tuesday said that he is likely to impose tariffs
ELECTRONICS BOOST: A predicted surge in exports would likely be driven by ICT products, exports of which have soared 84.7 percent from a year earlier, DBS said DBS Bank Ltd (星展銀行) yesterday raised its GDP growth forecast for Taiwan this year to 4 percent from 3 percent, citing robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI)-related exports and accelerated shipment activity, which are expected to offset potential headwinds from US tariffs. “Our GDP growth forecast for 2025 is revised up to 4 percent from 3 percent to reflect front-loaded exports and strong AI demand,” Singapore-based DBS senior economist Ma Tieying (馬鐵英) said in an online briefing. Taiwan’s second-quarter performance beat expectations, with GDP growth likely surpassing 5 percent, driven by a 34.1 percent year-on-year increase in exports, Ma said, citing government
HELPING HAND: Approving the sale of H20s could give China the edge it needs to capture market share and become the global standard, a US representative said The US President Donald Trump administration’s decision allowing Nvidia Corp to resume shipments of its H20 artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China risks bolstering Beijing’s military capabilities and expanding its capacity to compete with the US, the head of the US House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party said. “The H20, which is a cost-effective and powerful AI inference chip, far surpasses China’s indigenous capability and would therefore provide a substantial increase to China’s AI development,” committee chairman John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican, said on Friday in a letter to US Secretary of
RSS