Chung Hsing New Village in Nantou County, once the seat of the Taiwan Provincial Government, will in 10 years be transformed into a research park expected to generate annual revenue of NT$29.5 billion (US$911 million), the park’s administration said yesterday.
At the official opening of the preparatory office for the Chung Hsing New Village High-Level Research Park, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said that as Nantou produces a lot of top-quality fruit and tea, the new park should seek to develop herbal medicines, local medical tourism and leisure industries.
Construction on the 276 hectare park will begin next year. The first phase of construction will be completed in 2014 and the full project is scheduled to be finished in 2019 at a total cost of NT$26.7 billion.
It is expected to house about 250 research and development units, including a facility for the state-owned Industrial Technology Research Institute of Taiwan, the Institute for Information Industry, Taiwan Historica, the Institute of Nuclear Energy Research (part of the Atomic Energy Council) and the National Applied Research Laboratories.
The park will bring an estimated NT$3 billion per year in consumer spending to the area and NT$5 billion in research and development (R&D) spending, the administration said.
It will create about 20,000 jobs, including 7,500 R&D personnel, it said, adding that 250 companies would have facilities at the park and accommodations would be built for 16,500 residents.
“When I was commissioner of Nantou County 28 years ago, Chung Hsing New Village was the hub of the provincial government and was crowded and bustling. After the 921 earthquake [of 1999], which devastated the county, and the closing of the provincial government, it fell into a depression and has been left idle for about 10 years,” Wu said.
“Although this revival plan is late, it will surely bring back prosperity,” he said.
The Taiwan Provincial Government, established in 1947 to take the place of the Office of Governor-General created by the Japanese government during its colonization of Taiwan, was abolished in 1997 following constitutional changes to remove administrative redundancy.
Since then, many of the buildings once used for government facilities have remained unoccupied.
Yang Wen-ke (楊文科), the director-general of the Central Taiwan Science Park, said the government planned to renovate Chung Hsing New Village in a way that blends tradition and technology. The design will preserve the local ecology and buildings of historical significance, Yang said.
‘LONE WOLF’: The suspect was difficult to locate, as he did not use a cellphone, did not contact family and often lived in abandoned sites or parks, police said Taipei police on Thursday morning arrested a man accused of numerous burglaries and at least 14 incidents of sexual assault spanning more than 20 years, in what might be the nation’s most notorious crime spree in recent years. Sixty-year-old Tu Ming-lang (涂明朗) — who was yesterday placed in judicial detention, after a judge determined he was a flight risk without a fixed address — faces multiple charges of sexual assault and burglary, police said. A task force comprised of various law enforcement agencies arrested Tu as part of an investigation into an April 28 burglary in Daan District (大安), in which a
Ninth graders were asked to define “trolling” on this year’s standardized exam, reflecting efforts to make the test better reflect real-life situations. Adjustments to this year’s Comprehensive Assessment Program for Junior High School Students were revealed on Sunday, after the last cohort of students completed the test over the weekend. The Ministry of Education solicited feedback about the test from teachers, who approved of the new question in the English portion. Not only was question No. 20 “very much in line with real-life situations,” but it also used a new style in which students were asked to ascertain the correct dictionary definition based
Taiwan is on alert for monkeypox, a rare viral disease that has caused 87 infections in 11 countries over the past three weeks, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Saturday. The WHO on Friday convened an emergency session to discuss a sudden outbreak of monkeypox in North America and Europe. Since the beginning of this month, 87 confirmed cases and 28 possible cases have been identified in 11 countries. The countries with the highest case counts are England with 29 cases, and Portugal and Spain with 23 each. Monkeypox is a viral zoonotic disease occurring primarily in the tropical rainforest areas
ADAPTING: The CECC said the policy change would happen this week at the earliest, while PCR testing stations would be used to diagnose people and prescribe drugs The general public would be able to use a positive rapid test result that has been confirmed by a doctor for COVID-19 diagnosis starting later this week at the soonest, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday, as it reported 79,441 new local infections and 53 deaths. The center on Saturday announced that it was expanding the rapid test diagnosis policy to people living in indigenous townships and outlying islands, starting today. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, yesterday said the policy might be further expanded to include “all people” this week, at the soonest. He
RSS