2018-11-13

Port of Taichung Mitsui Outlet Park Set for 12-12 Grand Opening!

Mitsui Outlet Park, Taichung City’s first large-scale shopping mall, is on course for a spectacular grand opening on December 12th! Taichung Port’s new integrated leisure and recreation destination Mitsui Outlet Park occupies a generous, 18-ha stretch of port land. Phase I welcomes the opening of 170 retail shops and outlets, including famous makers such as TUMI, The North Face, Timberland, and Stage; restaurants including Ivorish, Bulls, Kintan Buffet, Kaneko Hannosuke, and Sanwa Japanese Restaurant; and entertainment providers such as Snow Town and Asobi Square, as well as a stunning new Ferris wheel offering unbeatable coastal views. The Port of Taichung notes that Mitsui Outlet Park’s design concept, “Enjoy the Voyage of Style”, will unfold through a progressively expanding tapestry of places, connections, and spaces that synchronize with and accentuate the port’s leisure image. Already installed and accessible to visitors include the public art installation “Mazu Crossing the Sea”, newly landscaped green spaces, and the Port of Taichung “Secret Garden” area. The port’s next major public art installation piece, “Smart Symbiosis” is scheduled to be unveiled on November 17th. The Port of Taichung is an international commercial port with a diverse business portfolio, including a green industry district, port logistics district, and tourism and leisure district. The opening of Mitsui Outlet Park sets the port’s tourism and leisure mechanism in motion and anticipates the addition of new hotels and entertainment / leisure facilities. Convenient connections to Taichung Port destinations via the city’s light rail / MRT network will also give visitors easy light-rail access to Wuqi Fishing Port, the Gaomei Wetlands, the Maritime Ecological Aquarium, Dajia’s Mazu Temple, and other area travel destinations, making the port a central coast spotlight destination and giving the Port of Taichung an exciting, new image. Looking ahead, in addition to continuing its recruitment of an eclectically diverse array of tourism/leisure sector investors, the Port of Taichung will support the development of wind-turbine logistics and assembly facilities that will be necessary to realize the government’s long-term offshore wind-turbine development program. The Port of Taichung will thus increasingly become a sustainable nexus of both recreation and green energy.

2018-10-16

Yiin Chuen Logistics - Warehousing Sets Up Shop in Port of Taichung’s Port Industries Development Zone

The Port of Taichung, TIPC has announced important progress in its work to recruit new business to the Port of Taichung Port Industries Development Zone. The port’s recent open review of requests to invest in and develop approximately 18,000m2 of land in the Port Industries Development Zone (Phase I) resulted in the selection of the bid submitted by Yiin Chuen Logistics and Warehousing Co., Ltd. as the best. Yiin Chuen’s proposed factory facility, once completed, is expected to generate NT$300 million in annual revenues. Yiin Chuen Logistics & Warehousing was founded in Taoyuan in 1979 as Yiin Chuen Machinery Co., a manufacturer and exporter of water-jet looms. The domestic and international success of its products gave Yiin Chuen a worldwide clientele, which supported the company’s diversification in 2003 into logistics and warehousing. Yiin Chuen set up its Taichung Port branch in the Port of Taichung MOEA Export Processing Zone in 2004, established the Yiin Chuen Warehouse (Yiin Chuen Facility No. 1), and built Facility No. 2 in 2006. The company today has 15 years of dedicated experience in the logistics sector. Yiin Chuen plans to use its latest investment to establish additional logistics warehouse facilities that will be used in its logistics, container packing / unpacking, cargo storage, and reexport business operations. Furthermore, Yiin Chuen will open a high-tech handling area specifically to take care of the specialized needs of clients in the high-tech sector. The company plans to invest NT$400 million, break ground in early 2019, and start operating in January 2020. Once fully operational, the site is expected to generate around NT$300 million in annual revenues. In a statement, officials of the Port of Taichung remarked that the nearly 55.45ha of remaining land available in the Port Industries Development Zone will be gradually organized into several bids and offered up for investment and development. The port hopes to foster a mutually supportive industry cluster, increase the effective utilization of available land in the port, and generate new jobs and economic opportunity in the area.

2018-09-20

2018 Global Harbor Cities Forum Set to Give New, Positive Forward Momentum to Port-City Cooperation

All is set and ready to go for the 2018 Global Harbor Cities Forum scheduled for September 25th – 27th at the Kaohsiung Exhibition Center in the southern Taiwan metropolis of Kaohsiung. The Kaohsiung City Government is this year’s forum sponsor, while the Taiwan International Ports Corporation (TIPC) has been tasked to plan and organize three of the sessions. It is hoped that the forum will further deepen port-harbor synergies in Kaohsiung City through increased interaction and cooperation and will move both ever closer to high “harbor city” ideals. As with the 1st Global Harbor Cities Forum in 2016, the 2nd forum is being held in Kaohsiung City with the objectives of extending and deepening cooperation and sharing among the world’s “harbor cities”. The theme of this year’s forum is “Here and Beyond: Forces Affecting Our Future”, with subtopics addressing “youthful innovation and startups”, “conventions and tourism”, “sustainable green environments”, “the new maritime economy”, and “new smart cities”. Top experts and scholars from around the world will serve as moderators, speakers, and panelists, giving participants prescient and practical insights into market trends worldwide. TIPC is taking the lead on arranging the two subtopics “the new maritime economy” and “new smart cities”. Focusing, respectively, on cruise ships and smart ports, TIPC has invited 10 international and 5 domestic eminent experts to share their relevant experiences and insights regarding the latest trends, the key challenges, and the key opportunities for innovation and transformation. One of the issues to be addressed under the subtopic of “the new maritime economy” is the recent strong growth in the cruise vacation industry in East Asia and how TIPC is working to retool its infrastructure and services to take strategic advantage of the new “cruise economy”. Year-on-year cruise passenger numbers have been growing exponentially since 2012, with an expanded network of Asia-Pacific routes adding fuel to the cruise tourism boom and opening up major new opportunities for business. On the issue “Opportunities for Cooperation at the Intersection of Asia Cruise Routes and Port-of-Call Cities”, TIPC plans to focus discussions on two key aspects. Two international cruise ship executives and representatives from one Japanese and one South Korean port city will launch into discussions of the East Asia route planning activities of cruise ship companies, successful examples of cruise company – city cooperation enhancing the attractiveness of specific port-of-call destinations, and benchmark examples of how harbor cities in East Asia have positively and successfully enhanced their soft and hard tourism infrastructures. Advancing technologies are making artificial intelligence (AI) a force that is both challenging and reshaping nearly every industry. TIPC addresses AI trends in the “new smart cities” subtopic in two discussion sessions, respectively entitled “A Blueprint for Developing Smart Ports” and “AI Applications in the Port Sector – Developments in Self-Navigating Boats and Container Yard Automation”. Commercial port operations are at the core of TIPC’s business, and the company works constantly to maximize and improve its operating efficiencies and flexibility. The recent consolidation and reorganization of the global shipping industry in recent years highlights the ongoing trend in the market toward fewer companies with significantly greater size and influence. The continued trend toward larger commercial container ships is driving ports to focus development on honing operational efficiencies and on making effective use of automation. Thus, in the session “A Blueprint for Developing Smart Ports”, TIPC has invited representatives from ports at the forefront of the smart-port movement in Japan and South Korea to share the bottlenecks encountered during implementation, the related solutions, and the resultant benefits. Their insights will provide critical references to TIPC’s ongoing and future work to promote world-class smart ports in Taiwan. In the session “AI Applications in the Port Sector – Developments in Self-Navigating Boats and Container Yard Automation”, TIPC has invited representatives from companies at the forefront of promoting self-navigation technologies and automated container yard systems. A representative from a Norwegian-based tech firm will take the stage to share the current state of development for both technologies from his company’s perspective. TIPC has expressed that this year’s Global Harbor Cities Forum is uniquely innovative, diverse, and international. With the active support of TIPC and lively, productive interactions between the GHCF attendees and the domestic and international experts, this forum promises to be an engine of harbor-city industry transformation and urban development and to suggest promising directions for innovation and breakthroughs in international port operations and sustainable environmental management. * Contact：Nai-wen Chang * Phone：07-5219000#3301