Fri, Jun 15, 2001 page2

• NSC appoints new vice chairman

  • By Chiu Yu-Tzu / STAFF REPORTER
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  One of the nation's most respected high-tech industrial park managers was appointed yesterday to a key post at the National Science Council (國科會).

  Huang Wen-hsiung (黃文雄), who was until Wednesday director-general of Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park Administration (新竹科學園區管理局), took up one of the three vice chairmanships of the council.

  The position has been vacant since mid-May, when the council approved the resignation of Steve Hsieh (薛香川). Hsieh chose to quit amid controversy over predicted vibration problems that would be caused by trains travelling on a high-speed railroad currently under construction.

  The wrangle over the rail line's vibration problems deepened in late February, when Winbond Electronics decided to cancel a 12-inch wafer plant project in the park, saying that their manufacturing process was highly sensitive to the vibration.

  NSC Chairman Wei Che-ho (魏哲和) said yesterday that Huang, an experienced high-tech park manager, would supervise Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park and a proposed science park in central Taiwan.

  Huang, who holds a PhD in engineering from Tokyo University, held an engineering professorship in the 1980s. In 1988, however, he began work for the Ministry of Economic Affairs as an energy policy expert. In 1992, Huang served as director of the NSC's Precision Instrument Development Center.

  Due to his familiarity with engineering management, he was appointed to head Tainan Science-based Industrial Park's Development Office (南科籌備處) in 1998. Last year, he was appointed to head the Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park.

  Huang said yesterday that the high-tech park in Hsinchu is a well-known, successful example of how to build such a park.

  "Even facing new potential competitors, including China, high-tech parks in Taiwan still have advantages, such as our innovative research and development achievements," Huang said.

  Huang said that building a new high-tech park in central Taiwan was good for Taiwan's development and that the process of evaluating an appropriate location for the proposed park had been carried out. Huang said that a final decision on the location would be made by the end of this year. "I will supervise the issue from a professional rather than from a political point of view," Huang said.

  As the year-end legislative elections approach, local factions are competing for backing from the NSC in order to establish high-tech parks to please local residents by demonstrating a show of support for local economic development.

  Wei, however, said that matters relating to the Tainan Science-based Industrial Park would be supervised by Vice Chairman Hsieh Ching-chih (謝清志).

  Wei said that the NSC would meet with officials from the park in Tainan every two weeks, a process which started this month, to discuss possible ways to help firms at the park to improve their ability to counter vibrations from the high-speed rail.

  In addition, the NSC is considering carrying out a project this year to reduce the vibrations transmitted from the railway to units at the science park in Tainan. Bids for the project, NSC officials said, will be invited from firms both at home and abroad. Some Japanese and US firms have expressed interest in bidding.

  Huang's successor at the Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park has not yet been decided.
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