Taoyuan County boasts many industrial and commercial activities, with two-fifths of the nation’s top 500 companies having established factories in the county, and as tourism has grown in recent years, with visitors bringing a big economic boost to the county, the local government says it has been providing assistance to local companies to help them transform their factories into tourist attractions.
Among the factories that have been transformed are those owned by Hey Song Corp, Formosa Plastics Corp, I-Mei Foods Co, Coca-Cola Co and Kimlan Foods Co.
In October last year, Taiwan Tobacco & Liquor Corp’s Linkou Brewery in Guishan Township (龜山) was listed by the Ministry of Economic Affairs as one of the nation’s top five tourism factories.
Photo courtesy of the Taoyuan County Government’s Economic Development Bureau
The ministry also set up an advertising campaign at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport to help increase the visibility of the county’s Kuo Yuan Ye Museum of Cake and Pastry, which it said is one of the best factories for international tourists to visit.
Taoyuan County Government officials said some of the tourism factories are focused on introducing the company’s history or culture, such as the Formosa Plastics Group Museum, which showcases the group’s development and its late founder, Wang Yung-ching (王永慶).
Other museums, such as big-name brands Hey Song, Coca-Cola, Kimlan and Kuang-chuan Co, mainly display popular items from “the good old days,” such as Hey Song’s glass bottled soda, the officials said.
Action Electronics Co’s Action Museum, for example, displays electronic products that reflect the development of the industry in Taiwan over the past 30 years.
Meanwhile, other tourism factories, such as Hunya Foods Co’s Republic of Chocolate, the Kuo Yuan Ye Museum of Cake and Pastry, White-Wood-House Brand Discovery Gallery, I-Mei’s Ecological and Lifestyle Park, Les Enphants and Xin-Peng-Lai Foods Co’s Tofu Culture Center, allow visitors to participate in the making of food or other products to take home as souvenirs, the officials added.
The local government used “Made in Taoyuan No. 1” as its slogan to promote the county’s tourism factories in 2011, before adopting the slogan “Taoyuan Tourism Factories Prosperous Wonderland” in 2012 to highlight that the factories have been transformed into amusement parks.
According to government statistics, more than 2 million people visited the factories in 2012 and last year, bringing in an estimated NT$600 million (US$19.9 million) a year, while the successful transformation of the factories has also shined a light on the county’s traditional industries.
The officials said that due to the success of the project, more companies are eager to transform their factories. For example, Me-de Food Co’s factory in Bade District (八德市) recently held an opening ceremony and was certified by the Ministry of Economic Affairs as the county’s 23rd tourism factory.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
RSS