Several multinational companies are interested in developing the area around Taiwan High Speed Rail’s (HSR) Taoyuan Station, almost a month before the Bureau of High Speed Rail is set to begin seeking developers for the area, bureau officials said yesterday.
The businesses include several well-known jewelry companies, hotels, shopping malls and amusement parks, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The bureau is scheduled to stage a presentation at the end of this month or the beginning of next month to explain the ground rules for the development of the commercial and manufacturing zone of the Taoyuan Station area before choosing a developer through public tender.
Noting that the bureau tried in vain to contract developers for the zone, along with a similar zone around Taichung Station, three years ago, the official said with confidence that the plan would succeed this time.
The officials said the area to be developed covers 22 hectares, much bigger than the three-hectare and four-hectare plots offered previously.
Furthermore, the officials said, Taiwan’s economy, which was in the grip of the global financial crisis two years ago, has turned the corner since the end of last year and could expand even more now that the country has concluded a trade pact with China.
Under the bureau’s plan, the zone in the Taoyuan Station area will be developed into an international commercial city in view of the fact that it is only a 10-minute drive from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, which would make it attractive to international businesses.
The officials said the areas around the high-speed rail stations were designed to promote land development along the 345km rail route, which has made cities along its length accessible to each other within a maximum of 90 minutes.
In addition to the Taoyuan Station area, there are four other areas around Hsinchu, Taichung, Chiayi and Tainan stations, and authorities hope commercial and manufacturing zones will make them the centerpiece of development in their respective areas.
However, none of the commercial and manufacturing zones have yet been established, except for one at Hsinchu Station, which has been designated by the National Science Council as the location for a biotechnology park.
The areas, with advanced infrastructure — including optical fiber broadband networks and major roads linking them to nearby cities — already in place, would be ideal locations for businesses eyeing overseas markets, according to the officials.
The Taoyuan Station area will be particularly favored, given the fact that a rapid transit system connecting Taipei and Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport through the station is expected to be completed by 2012.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods