Taipei's simmering property market is attracting foreign attention, with US real-estate tycoon Donald Trump and Beijing Vantone Industrial Co (北京萬通實業) looking to enter the market.
Trump has contracted with a local real-estate service provider to look for land in Taipei for his luxury home projects, the realtor confirmed yesterday.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the realtor said that "Trump expressed interest a few months ago and is hoping to locate a viable parcel of land as soon as possible."
The most likely spot for his top-tier housing project, which may be worth more than US$1 billion, is Taipei City's Xinyi District (
As "Mr Trump would like to stay low-key before everything matures," the realtor declined to elaborate.
The planned luxury homes will target multinational executives and top business leaders, it said.
Also in Xinyi District, the world's tallest completed skyscraper, Taipei 101, has caught the eye of Chinese real-estate tycoon Feng Lun (馮侖), chairman of Beijing Vantone.
Feng told Taipei 101 that he was interested in renting 4,000 pings of office space on the skyscraper's 80th floor and higher, media reported yesterday.
Michael Liu (劉家豪), assistant vice president of Taipei Financial Center Corp (台北金融大樓公司), the skyscraper's operator, yesterday confirmed that Feng had expressed interested during a visit last year.
"But no deals have been reached and it's still too early to tell whether there will be a deal," Liu said.
Liu said the skyscraper's offices had reached an occupancy rate of 75 percent, leaving 550,000 ping of vacant office space for rent between the 70th and 84th floors.
Approximately 2,000 ping (6,600m3) of office space above the 80th floor is available for rent, with a minimum rental price of NT$4,000 per ping, he said, inviting Beijing Vantone to become the skyscraper's third Chinese tenant after the entry of Lenovo China (聯想) and Tiens Group Co (天獅集團).
The deal is pending approval from the government since no Chinese companies are allowed to open branches in Taiwan, Liu said.
Lenovo and Tiens Group have entered the market as international companies, clearing the regulation.
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
With an approval rating of just two percent, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte might be the world’s most unpopular leader, according to pollsters. Protests greeted her rise to power 29 months ago, and have marked her entire term — joined by assorted scandals, investigations, controversies and a surge in gang violence. The 63-year-old is the target of a dozen probes, including for her alleged failure to declare gifts of luxury jewels and watches, a scandal inevitably dubbed “Rolexgate.” She is also under the microscope for a two-week undeclared absence for nose surgery — which she insists was medical, not cosmetic — and is
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designer specializing in artificial-intelligence (AI) chips, yesterday said that small-volume production of 3-nanometer (nm) chips for a key customer is on track to start by the end of this year, dismissing speculation about delays in producing advanced chips. As Alchip is transitioning from 7-nanometer and 5-nanometer process technology to 3 nanometers, investors and shareholders have been closely monitoring whether the company is navigating through such transition smoothly. “We are proceeding well in [building] this generation [of chips]. It appears to me that no revision will be required. We have achieved success in designing
RSS