Taipei’s Zhonghua Borough (中華) replaced Hsinchu City’s Guanxin Borough (關新) with the highest average annual household income among the nation’s boroughs in 2023, income tax data released on Monday by the Ministry of Finance showed.
The average annual household income in Zhonghua in Taipei’s Songshan District (松山) was NT$5.266 million (US$180,435), topping all other boroughs and villages in Taiwan for the first time, the data showed.
That figure surged 146.42 percent from NT$2.137 million in 2022, which might be related to some wealthy people moving to the borough, local media speculated.
Photo: CNA
However, the median annual household income in Zhonghua, located at the intersection of Dunhua N Road and Nanjing E Road, was just NT$984,000, indicating that the borough’s household income was not evenly distributed.
Guanxin, in Hinchu City’s East District (東區), slipped to second place with an average annual household income of NT$4.614 million, the data showed.
The borough, home to many technology professionals who work in the nearby Hsinchu Science Park (新竹科學園區), had claimed the top position for five consecutive years before 2023.
The median annual household income in Guanxin was NT$3.479 million, also the highest among all boroughs and villages, and an indication that its household income had been distributed more evenly compared with others.
Yongfu Borough (永福) in Taipei’s Shilin District (士林) was the third-richest borough in 2023, up one notch from the previous year as its average annual income reached NT$3.46 million.
However, its median income was only NT$803,000, suggesting a large wealth gap among its residents.
The fourth-richest borough or village was Tongping Borough (東平), in Hsinchu County’s Jhubei City (竹北), also up one place from 2022, with an average annual income of NT$3.416 million and a median income of NT$2.43 million.
Ranking in fifth position was Sanfeng Village (三峰) in Hsinchu County’s Baoshan Township (寶山), with an average annual income of NT$3.371 million and a median income of NT$664,000.
The ministry said the income gap was large in Sanfeng as some wealthy people raised the average figure.
The ministry’s latest data, which covers about 6.88 million households, showed that Hsinchu City topped the list of wealthiest cities in 2023 with an average annual household income of NT$1.524 million. The city retained its top position for the sixth consecutive year.
Hsinchu County ranked second with NT$1.353 million, followed by Taipei with NT$1.287 million, while the average annual household income in the other five special municipalities was between NT$790,000 and NT$864,000, the data showed.
When Lika Megreladze was a child, life in her native western Georgian region of Guria revolved around tea. Her mother worked for decades as a scientist at the Soviet Union’s Institute of Tea and Subtropical Crops in the village of Anaseuli, Georgia, perfecting cultivation methods for a Georgian tea industry that supplied the bulk of the vast communist state’s brews. “When I was a child, this was only my mum’s workplace. Only later I realized that it was something big,” she said. Now, the institute lies abandoned. Yellowed papers are strewn around its decaying corridors, and a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin
UNIFYING OPPOSITION: Numerous companies have registered complaints over the potential levies, bringing together rival automakers in voicing their reservations US President Donald Trump is readying plans for industry-specific tariffs to kick in alongside his country-by-country duties in two weeks, ramping up his push to reshape the US’ standing in the global trading system by penalizing purchases from abroad. Administration officials could release details of Trump’s planned 50 percent duty on copper in the days before they are set to take effect on Friday next week, a person familiar with the matter said. That is the same date Trump’s “reciprocal” levies on products from more than 100 nations are slated to begin. Trump on Tuesday said that he is likely to impose tariffs
HELPING HAND: Approving the sale of H20s could give China the edge it needs to capture market share and become the global standard, a US representative said The US President Donald Trump administration’s decision allowing Nvidia Corp to resume shipments of its H20 artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China risks bolstering Beijing’s military capabilities and expanding its capacity to compete with the US, the head of the US House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party said. “The H20, which is a cost-effective and powerful AI inference chip, far surpasses China’s indigenous capability and would therefore provide a substantial increase to China’s AI development,” committee chairman John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican, said on Friday in a letter to US Secretary of
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) market value closed above US$1 trillion for the first time in Taipei last week, with a raised sales forecast driven by robust artificial intelligence (AI) demand. TSMC saw its Taiwanese shares climb to a record high on Friday, a near 50 percent rise from an April low. That has made it the first Asian stock worth more than US$1 trillion, since PetroChina Co (中國石油天然氣) briefly reached the milestone in 2007. As investors turned calm after their aggressive buying on Friday, amid optimism over the chipmaker’s business outlook, TSMC lost 0.43 percent to close at NT$1,150