Taiwan’s technology industrial parks (TIP), formerly known as export processing zones, posted a record-breaking performance in the first half of this year, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
“Despite the COVID-19 outbreak, work went on at our TIPs,” Export Processing Zone Administration (EPZA) Deputy Director-General Liu Chi-chuan (劉繼傳) said.
For the first half of the year, revenue at the 10 parks hit a record NT$216.1 billion (US$7.74 billion), while aggregate foreign trade totaled a record US$12.7 billion, the ministry said.
“We saw increased investment, revenue, exports, imports and the number of employees in the first half of the year,” Liu said. “Even after the COVID-19 outbreak that started in May, we kept gaining ground.”
The 10 parks employ 84,822 workers.
As Taiwan moved to tame the outbreak, the pace in investment and production activities at the 10 parks across the nation “slowed, but never ceased,” he added.
“Unlike other countries that were hit by COVID-19, the situation was never serious enough for work to cease in Taiwan,” Liu said, adding that it was a vote of confidence by businesses that the government would keep COVID-19 under control.
The strong showing in the first half reflected the robust global demand for products and services provided by the TIPs, including semiconductor packaging and testing, display device manufacturing, optical and electronic manufacturing, and digital content creation, Liu said.
“Thanks to the EU and the US waking up economically after lockdown, we expect the parks to become even busier,” he said.
A TIP in Taichung focusing on software industry, Taichung Software Park (台中軟體園區), saw revenue expand 26 percent year-on-year in the first half of this year, while Tanzi Technology Industrial Park (潭子科技產業園區) in the same city, which focuses on optical lens production, grew 31 percent, Liu said.
The TIP that posted the steepest growth was Pingtung Technology Industrial Park (屏東科技產業園區) in Pingtung County, which saw investment rise 273 percent, revenue grow 38 percent and employee headcount increase 17 percent in the first half of the year, he added.
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