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.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
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Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last