The Executive Yuan has finalized an urban renewal plan to develop the Hua Kuang Community, an area near Taiwan National Democracy Memorial Hall, into a financial center and a telecommunications technology park.
Tsai Tsun-hsiung (蔡勳雄), a Cabinet minister without portfolio, convened an interagency meeting on Friday on the proposal, which was submitted by the Ministry of the Interior (MOI). Officials from the Council of Economic Planning and Development, the Ministry of Justice, the Taipei City Government, Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) and Chunghwa Post (中華郵政) also participated in the meeting.
The MOI and Chunghwa Post agreed to move their employees out of their buildings to make way for the renovations. Chunghwa Telecom also agreed to coordinate with its counterparts and related businesses to map out a plan to build a development center for digital telecommunications.
Hua Kuang Community is the area between Hangzhou S Road Sec 2 and Jinshan S Road Sec 2 on the north-south axis and between Jinhua Street and Jinshan S Road, Section 2, Lane 30, east-to-west.
The renewal plan was first proposed in 2005 under the then-Democratic Progressive Party administration, which wanted to develop it into an administrative center and a cultural zone.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government now wishes to turn the area of 12.6 hectares — one of the 20 major urban renewal plans it has advocated nationwide — into what it called “Taiwan’s Wall Street.”
The Financial Supervisory Commission, located in Banciao, Taipei County, will provide four buildings to accommodate its employees and those from the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taiwan Future Exchanges.
The government wishes to relocate the Taiwan Financial Holding Group (台灣金融控股公司) and other state-owned financial institutions and to attract transnational corporations.
A tract of government-owned land within the community has also been demarcated for business hotels.
The Executive Yuan said the government hopes to begin the project by the end of this year, adding it expected it would cost NT$16.7 billion (US$509.3 million).
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