A dispute over whether to construct an exhibition hall in the Nankang Trade Park escalated yesterday after Taoyuan County and Taipei County joined the contest for government funding to build the largest exhibition hall in Taiwan.
Taoyuan County Commissioner Chu Li-lun (
The HSR-designated site, also one of the Ministry of Economic Affairs' shortlisted venues for the exhibition hall, is 21 hectares in area and could accommodate more than 5,000 exhibition booths.
The location, which ranked No. 4 in an MOEA chart, has good transportation links with its proximity to the airport, but the drawback is that the land cannot be acquired until 2005.
Chu, who made the appeal concerning the project personally to Yu, inevitably drew speculation that he was competing with his KMT comrade, Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
Chu yesterday dismissed the rumors, saying he supported Taipei City's bid to build the Nankang exhibition hall, whose function would be different from that planned by Taoyuan County.
"The two projects are totally different. We supported the Nankang Trade Park to build its exhibition hall based on a B-to-C [business to customer] model, but we also need a large-scale exhibition center which is modeled on a B-to-B [business to business] platform to offer professional display venues for industry," Chu said yesterday.
Chang Jin-sheng (
In addition to Taoyuan County, Taipei County Commissioner Su Tseng-chang (
"We hope it will be built in Linkou, which could provide 550 hectares to accommodate at least 5,000 exhibition booths, unlike Taipei City which could accommodate only 3000," Su said.
Su also dismissed media reports that the CEPD intends to choose the new National Taipei University in Sanhsia, Taipei County for the project.
The dispute started on Wednesday when Ma lashed out at the CEPD for rejecting for a second time the MOEA's proposal to build the exhibition center in Taipei's Nankang district.
Chang yesterday rejected media reports and opposition lawmakers' complaints that the CEPD's change of heart was a politically motivated one intended to damage Ma.
"The discussion of policies can't be dealt with in this manner, in which heads of local governments always pretend they are poor, and accuse the central government of disadvantaging them," Chang said.
Chang also said that the fact that the project had been planned for nine years was not in itself a justification for it to be approved.
"If a project has been evaluated for nine years without being approved, the supervision of the project must have been flawed in the first place," he said.
Opposition lawmakers yesterday lashed out at the CEPD for its "political conspiracy" to reject the Nankang plan.
KMT legislative caucus whip Liu Cheng-hung (劉政鴻) said "the decision to exclude Nankang from building the exhibition hall was made by the DPP government to oppress Ma, the promising political star of the pan-blue camp."
PFP Legislator Chiu Yi (
Bickering wastes time and money
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