With only a day left until the Taipei City Government’s deadline for Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to resolve the Taipei Dome’s safety issues, the city yesterday allowed the group to partially resume work at the site after it met a key government demand.
The Taipei Department of Urban Development had demanded that Farglory and its architects affix their seals to six work proposals, but the group had insisted that it was not necessary.
Just before a regularly scheduled review meeting between Farglory officials and representatives of the department, the group delivered six work proposals made in accordance with a Taipei High Administrative Court ruling that it had to address safety risks posed by construction — all of which had the appropriate seals affixed, department division chief Wei Kuo-chung (魏國忠) said.
The six proposals cover fixing damage to the Dome caused during the suspension of work on the project, building drainage systems, installing titanium panels on the roof, applying intumescent paint, constructing bleachers and finishing the outline of an underground parking lot, Wei said.
The department also approved another proposal submitted by Farglory to cover the Dome and four other buildings in the complex — a department store, a hotel, an office building and a movie theater — with curtain walls, he said.
In related news, Taipei Department of Legal Affairs Commissioner Yang Fang-ling (楊芳玲) said on the sidelines of the news conference that tomorrow was the deadline for Farglory to act on safety issues surrounding the complex.
However, that contradicts Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) statement on Friday last week that Farglory would be given three more months to mediate with the city to prevent the contract from being dissolved.
Asked to clarify the conflicting comments, Yang reiterated that Farglory would not be given three more months and a final decision would be made tomorrow.
If the city does dissolve the contract tomorrow, it would mean that it has eliminated the option to request the coalition of banks that loaned Farglory money for the project to take over the project, as the option must be exercised while the contract is still valid.
Article 20 of the city’s contract with Farglory states that should any dispute regarding the contract arise, a mediation committee should be established within one month.
“The group is drawing up plans to complete construction of the project in line with the city government’s safety requirements,” Farglory spokesman Jacky Yang (楊舜欽) said by telephone.
Additional reporting by Crystal Hsu
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS