Suao Port (蘇澳港) in Yilan County is cashing in on the market for green products because one of the nation’s electric vehicle manufacturers has plans to establish an assembly line there, the Kaohsiung Harbor Bureau said yesterday.
The port is under the administration of the Kaohsiung Harbor Bureau. Although it was one of the Ten Major Construction Projects that were launched in the 1970s, bureau Deputy Director-General Chen Fu-nan (陳福男) said the port had not attracted much investment from the private sector over the years. Currently, Suao Port handles about 6.5 million tonnes of cargo per year, with a majority of ships carrying cement, coal or iron sand.
FREE PORT
This year Suao Port also became one of the nation’s free trade ports.
Pihsiang Machinery Co (必翔實業) will be the first manufacturer to set up a factory at the port after it became a free trade port, he said.
The bureau said Suao Port owns about 71 hectares of land, with 24 hectares designated as a logistics district for manufacturers.
The bureau leased about 5 hectares in the logistics district to Pihsiang. Both signed the contract two weeks ago.
Saying that Pihsiang has been scouting for a proper location for a while, Chen added that it chose Suao because the port offered a lower rental price.
Based on the contract, Pihsiang will pay the port NT$10.83 million (US$335,000) for maintenance fees each year and 1 percent of its net income after tax.
CHAIN LINK
Meanwhile, because Suao Port is close to Longte Industrial Park (龍德工業區) and Letzer Industrial Park (利澤工業區), which are both designed as green industry zones, Chen said the company could link into the green industry chain.
The bureau said the company plans to complete construction of its factory by next March.
The assembly line is scheduled to begin operations by June 2011.
Pihsiang estimates that output value in the initial stages will be about NT$300 million.
It is also planning to increase capital investment by about NT$1.7 billion each year.
The factory will create about 200 jobs in Suao.
The nation’s free trade ports include Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and the seaports in Keelung, Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung.
Companies with operations in the free trade ports receive tax benefits and can hire foreign workers to make up as much as 40 percent of their workforces.
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