A consortium led by a Hong Kong media tycoon yesterday announced plans for the Taipei Twin Towers development project, which would involve digital features blended with physical commercial spaces if it wins the contract.
“Taipei has not seen eye-catching buildings for quite a while, not since the construction of Taipei 101, but we aim to rescue the city from the architectural doldrums with the Taipei City One project,” Hong Kong-based Nan Hai Corp (南海控股) chairman Yu Pun-hoi (于品海) told a media briefing in Taipei.
Nan Hai is a holding company primarily engaged with businesses in China, Hong Kong, North America, Europe and Australia that are involved in the culture and media sectors, property development and IT application services.
The firm has teamed up with Malaysian property developer Pavilion Group (柏威年集團) to compete against a local consortium — computer maker Clevo Co (藍天電腦) and affiliate Hongwell Group (宏匯集團) — to win a multibillion-dollar development project near Taipei Railway Station.
The city government is to announce the winner later this month after being unsuccessful in auctioning off the contract over the past 20 years.
The Nan Hai-Pavilion team aims to build two towers — one 65 stories and the other 53 stories — that would house retail stores on their lower floors, office spaces on the middle floors and hotel rooms on the upper floors, Yu said.
The Taipei City One project presents a real-estate development opportunity as well as a venue for launching an “online merge offline” business model — persuading consumers within a physical business to make purchases based on digital engagement — in Taiwan, said Yu, whose business interests have extended in the past few years to information technology and e-commerce.
If completed, the project would add more than 60,000 ping (198,347.4m2) of commercial space to the vicinity of Taipei Railway Station by 2024, Yu said.
“I would not worry about a supply glut, because there are no similar competitors in the neighborhood,” he added.
The area has a competitive edge over the Xinyi District (信義), where commercial space totals more than 100,000 ping, thanks to the proximity of historical sites and tourism resources, the team said.
The project might cost NT$60 billion (US$1.94 billion), with 50 percent coming from bank loans, Yu said, adding that his consortium does not have an exit plan, as it favors long-term investments.
Compared with real-estate prices in international cities across Asia, prices in Taipei are relatively affordable, and there is ample room to improve on the team’s investment, he said.
However, Yu said he was frustrated by Taiwan’s requirement that no Chinese company own more than a 30 percent stake in his Hong Kong-listed firm.
The requirement could scare away foreign direct investment as foreign funds can purchase company shares on the open market, he said.
“Taiwan should be more open and friendly toward foreign investment,” Yu added.
On Ireland’s blustery western seaboard, researchers are gleefully flying giant kites — not for fun, but in the hope of generating renewable electricity and sparking a “revolution” in wind energy. “We use a kite to capture the wind and a generator at the bottom of it that captures the power,” said Padraic Doherty of Kitepower, the Dutch firm behind the venture. At its test site in operation since September 2023 near the small town of Bangor Erris, the team transports the vast 60-square-meter kite from a hangar across the lunar-like bogland to a generator. The kite is then attached by a
Foxconn Technology Co (鴻準精密), a metal casing supplier owned by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), yesterday announced plans to invest US$1 billion in the US over the next decade as part of its business transformation strategy. The Apple Inc supplier said in a statement that its board approved the investment on Thursday, as part of a transformation strategy focused on precision mold development, smart manufacturing, robotics and advanced automation. The strategy would have a strong emphasis on artificial intelligence (AI), the company added. The company said it aims to build a flexible, intelligent production ecosystem to boost competitiveness and sustainability. Foxconn
Leading Taiwanese bicycle brands Giant Manufacturing Co (巨大機械) and Merida Industry Co (美利達工業) on Sunday said that they have adopted measures to mitigate the impact of the tariff policies of US President Donald Trump’s administration. The US announced at the beginning of this month that it would impose a 20 percent tariff on imported goods made in Taiwan, effective on Thursday last week. The tariff would be added to other pre-existing most-favored-nation duties and industry-specific trade remedy levy, which would bring the overall tariff on Taiwan-made bicycles to between 25.5 percent and 31 percent. However, Giant did not seem too perturbed by the
TARIFF CONCERNS: Semiconductor suppliers are tempering expectations for the traditionally strong third quarter, citing US tariff uncertainty and a stronger NT dollar Several Taiwanese semiconductor suppliers are taking a cautious view of the third quarter — typically a peak season for the industry — citing uncertainty over US tariffs and the stronger New Taiwan dollar. Smartphone chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科技) said that customers accelerated orders in the first half of the year to avoid potential tariffs threatened by US President Donald Trump’s administration. As a result, it anticipates weaker-than-usual peak-season demand in the third quarter. The US tariff plan, announced on April 2, initially proposed a 32 percent duty on Taiwanese goods. Its implementation was postponed by 90 days to July 9, then
RSS