Tainan, Taiwan, Jan. 26 (CNA) President Chen Shui-bian urged local businesspeople to use Taiwan as the base or headquarters of their global business operations. "By so doing, any corner of the world can be your foothold, and you'll be able to build your global business empire, " Chen said at a ceremony marking the upgrading of the preparatory office of the Tainan Science-based Industrial Park into a permanent agency.
Chen said the establishment of the Tainan industrial park signifies the government's efforts to boost industrial upgrading in southern Taiwan. "In the past, southern Taiwan mainly accommodated petrochemical and other labor-intensive traditional industries, while financial services and high-tech industries were concentrated in northern Taiwan," the president pointed out. "The establishment of the Tainan industrial park marks a critical step in the push for more balanced industrial development among the different regions of the island," Chen said.
Since the government set up a preparatory office to oversee infrastructure construction and to attract investment in the Tainan park six years ago, Chen said, the annual production of companies in the park has exceeded NT$100 billion (US$2.89 billion) and the total work force in the park has reached 15,000 people. "And the upgrading of the preparatory office to a permanent agency, to be named the Tainan Science-based Industrial Park Administration, symbolizes a new milestone in southern Taiwan's high-tech industry development," Chen said.
The Tainan industrial park, patterned after the Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park -- the heartland of the island's high-tech industry -- in northern Taiwan, has had a "cluster effect" in the island's optoelectronics industry development as nearly all of the local companies in the field have set up production facilities in the park, Chen said. He added that the park will boast more than nine 12-inch wafer plants in the next few years, making it Taiwan's second high-tech hub after Hsinchu park.