Hundreds of people flocked to Swedish furniture retailer IKEA’s new outlet in Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖) yesterday, when the store formally opened, as Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) expressed concern about traffic in the district.
The new store covers 6,200 ping (20,496m2) and has the capacity for 9,000 people. It replaced the Dunbei store in downtown Taipei, which had closed two days earlier.
At an inauguration ceremony for the new store, IKEA Group board member Marin Lindstrom said he was delighted that IKEA has found a new home in Neihu after operating at the Dunbei commercial zone for 23 years.
Photo: CNA
He said the Neihu store would provide customers with a more spacious shopping area, as well as more restaurant seating and parking spaces.
Ko, who attended the ceremony along with Taipei Deputy Mayor Huang Shan-shan (黃珊珊), said that Taipei is home to many types of shopping centers and retailers, such as Carrefour of France, Don Don Donki of Japan, local brand A. Mart and IKEA of Sweden.
These stores have changed the commercial appearance of the city and the living habits of its residents, he said.
Ko said that traffic in Neihu is the main concern, adding that he anticipated huge crowds at the new store.
Huang said that the Taipei City Government has prepared traffic control plans for Jiuzong Road, where many retailers are located, including the new IKEA outlet, to cope with the influx of shoppers at weekends and during holidays, as well as those seeking to visit the new store during its two-week inaugural period.
IKEA closed the Dunbei store on the corner of Dunhua N Road and Nanjing E Road on Monday. It was the retailer’s first store in the nation.
One resident, surnamed Lin (林), told the Central News Agency that she had visited the Dunbei store two or three times a week since it opened in 1998, adding that the store was “her psychological support.”
“I live nearby, so I often walked here,” Lin said.
Now that the store has moved away, “I feel not just a big loss, but also panic,” she said.
IKEA has five other outlets — one each in Taoyuan, Taichung and Kaohsiung, and two in New Taipei City.
The company has said it would not rule out plans to open stores elsewhere in Taiwan.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS