Taiwan special area may include casino

Taoyuan Aerotropolis, in the north of the island, will have various enterprise zones.Some zones will be for financial, logistics and cultural and creative businesses.Taoyuan Aerotropolis

“We are planning to have 150 hectares to 200 hectares in this enterprise zone for the development of integrated resorts, which may include gaming elements,” Mr Lee said.

He acknowledged that casinos were not yet legal in Taiwan. “So in the initial phase we are planning for non-gaming development first,” he said.

Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan, or parliament, has been debating a bill to legalise casinos proposed by members belonging to governing party, the Kuomintang. Lee said a monorail being planned would serve the zone.

The Taoyuan Aerotropolis project includes urban development covering 25 square kilometres, a third runway for Taoyuan airport and two urban railway lines. The Taiwan railway authorities said this year that the light rapid transit would be ready by the end of 2015 and be connected to the railway networks serving Taipei and the island at large.

Officials said the local government in Taoyuan was drawing up tax breaks for investors in a special economic zone in Taoyuan Aerotropolis. Lee said his company would like tax breaks to be offered to investors in the project’s enterprise zones. “These tax breaks will be at least similar to the Shanghai Free Trade Zone’s, because we are actually in competition,” he said.

He expressed confidence that Taoyuan Aerotropolis would allow Taiwan to compete strongly with Hong Kong and Singapore for logistics business in the Asia-Pacific region.

“We have two advantages. One is that we have more land for development,” he said. “Another is that we have strong backing from the information technology business, and the strongest semiconductor and optoelectronics industries.”