E-commerce company PChome Online Inc (網路家庭) has pledged to invest NT$2.9 billion (US$101.9 million) in a new smart logistics center in Taoyuan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
The project is part of the government’s Invest in Taiwan initiative to increase the nation’s competitiveness and sophistication in manufacturing, InvesTaiwan Service Center interim spokeswoman Nicole Chen (陳明珠) said.
“It doesn’t matter if it is a manufacturing project or a service sector project. The initiative is looking for smart projects with a high degree of automation,” Chen said.
Photo: CNA
The logistics center in the Chunghwa Post Logistics Park (中華郵政物流園區) in Taoyuan’s Gueishan District (龜山) would enhance PChome’s delivery capability and help ship Taiwanese products from small and medium-sized businesses to overseas markets, she said.
The company yesterday did not elaborate on the investment. PChome chairman Jan Hung-tze (詹宏志) in May 2019 said that the company would invest NT$3 billion to set up systems and equipment in the new logistics center, and create up to 5,000 jobs.
The ministry also announced that Winway Technology Co (穎崴科技), which provides semiconductor testing interfaces, broke ground on a NT$3.25 billion investment in Kaohsiung’s Nantze Export Processing Zone (楠梓加工出口區).
Describing Winway as a “hidden champion in semiconductors,” Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Chuan-neng (林全能) said that the investment would complete the semiconductor cluster at the zone.
Winway would provide services to ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控) and NXP Semiconductors NV, which also have facilities in the zone.
“The ministry will keep investing in the zone to make it a quality semiconductor manufacturing hub,” Lin said.
The Winway project, which is also part of Invest in Taiwan, is expected to generate NT$1 billion in annual output and create 200 jobs, the ministry said.
Export Processing Zone Administration Director-General Huang Wen-guu (黃文谷) said that the zone is “nearing capacity,” urging the government to expand the zone.
“We look forward to the zone being renamed, as this would reflect the increasingly diverse high-tech companies with facilities in the zone,” Huang said, referring to the zone’s proposed rebranding as technology industrial park, a plan pending Executive Yuan approval.
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