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NSC chooses Erlin as fourth site for science park

The central government selected Erlin (二林) in Changhua County as the fourth site for the Central Taiwan Science Park, said the National Science Council (NSC), which administrates and manages the country’s science parks.

The NSC said it selected the new location in Erlin among seven candidate sites through a review committee that visited all the areas in the three days before the final decision was made at a meeting on Wednesday.

Yang Wen-ke (楊文科), director-general of the park’s administration, said the Erlin location has around 800 hectares, which can be expanded to more than 1,000 hectares. Of the total area, 600 hectares could first be developed to settle the factories that have already been assigned to the site, he said.

The park administration said that after the government appropriates funding of some NT$40 billion (US$1.27 billion), construction of the park’s infrastructure will start by July next year and is expected to be completed by 2013.

After 2014, the administration said, the park could create some 40,000 jobs and generate annual production value of NT$500 billion.

In response to the NSC decision, Changhua County Commissioner Cho Po-yuan (卓伯源) said the new site would introduce more high-tech manufacturers to Changhua, helping change it from an agriculture-based county into a technology-based one.

The government decided to establish the central science park in 2000, with the aim of replicating the success achieved in the Hsinchu Science Park and the Southern Taiwan Science Park. To date, the park has three separate sites located in Taichung City, Houli (后里) in Taichung County and Huwei (虎尾) in Yunlin County.
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