The Taipei City Government yesterday held an opening ceremony for a creative hub for local brands and start-ups at the city’s Nangang Bottle Cap Factory.
Popop Taipei is to provide studio, exhibition and retail space for local brands and start-up companies at the historic site in Nangang District (南港), the city government said.
The former bottle cap factory, which closed in 2004, was built in 1943 by Domestic Cork Industrial during the Japanese colonial era, before becoming the Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corp Bottle Cap Factory in 1945.
Photo: CNA
In 2013, the buildings on the site were to be demolished as part of an urban redevelopment project, but after negotiations among the National Property Administration, the Taipei City Government and civic groups, they were designated historic buildings by the Taipei Department of Cultural Affairs.
After a few years of planning and restoration by the Taipei Department of Economic Development, the factory site — including six historic buildings, one reserved building and outdoor space — was reopened to the public as Popop Taipei.
Department of Economic Development Commissioner Lin Chung-chieh (林崇傑) said the hub would focus on “innovation and maker culture,” passing down the spirit of craftsmanship, quality and innovation, and brands, start-ups and exhibitors that seek to locate there must meet the theme of the site.
Popop Taipei serves as a cultural and creative start-up hub in the city’s Eastern District Gateway Project, and as it is located near the Nangang Railway Station and the Taipei Music Center, it will hopefully become a creative base for many start-up companies, makers and performance groups, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said.
Jason Yeh (葉泰民), CEO of GIS Group, which won an open-tender bid to operate Popop Taipei, said that he hopes the site will become a space in which many creators can build a network for sharing resources, experience, value and knowledge.
One of the buildings with the largest floor area has been made into a coworking space and makers’ area, for local craftspeople to pursue their creative hobbies and interests, and maybe turn them into a profession, he said.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS