Two weeks ago I finally discovered the number one sales pitch for studying in Tainan-Taiwan. NCKU is among Taiwan’s top 3 schools and all that, but why would anyone come to study International Business here?
The Tainan Science Park and the highly successful Taiwanese IT companies.
It’s a mystery as to how small Taiwan was able to produce such monster world leaders in such a short time, but the fact remains that Taiwan has some really successful companies that dominate very lucrative business niches. Chi-Mei and TSMC are fine examples for those. TSMC is mainly based in XinZhu, but also has a huge branch in Tainan while Chi-Mei is mainly Tainanese. From Wikipedia (1, 2):
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Limited (Traditional Chinese: 台灣積體電路製造股份有限公司, abbrev. TSMC) NYSE: TSM LSE: TMSD is the world’s largest dedicated independent semiconductor foundry, with its headquarters and main operations located in the Hsinchu Science Park in Hsinchu, Taiwan. TSMC’s market capitalization as of 24 August 2007 is US$52.13 billion.
Chi Mei Corporation (Chinese: 奇美實業廠) is a plastics producer in Taiwan. It is the largest maker of ABS resin in the world, producing about 1 million tons of ABS annually as of 1999. It has factories in Tainan and Zhenjiang. It also produces acrylic glass, polystyrene, thermoplastic elastomer and synthetic rubber. The company was founded by Wen-long Shi in 1960 as Chi Mei Industrial Company Ltd., the first acrylic sheet manufacturer in Taiwan; it was renamed Chi Mei Corporation in 1992.
We visited the park’s HQ to get a sense of the place we’re visiting…
I couldn’t find it anywhere on the web, so I attach my own ripped version in the dark with my crappy camera. It does however, give the general idea:
And some humble facts for this park :
The growth of Tainan Science Park
The average growth rate of sales revenue during 2000 to 2005 (CAGR %): 70.2%
Sales revenue from January to October 2006 are NT$350 billion, which increase 41.5%.
10+billionUS$ annually and growing at an amazing rate. Dear God.
This is what driving around the Tainan Science Park looks like :
It’d say that’s a bit different than Tainan City.
We toured around TSMC (photography not allowed) and I got to visit the second more private part of the world class Chimei private museum (I can’t imagine why, but this branch photography was okayed):
No doubt in my mind, if NCKU/Taiwan want to attract people to study their international business here this is what they should focus on. Collaborate with the Science Parks, show students the power of Taiwanese business and technology and you’ll win them over in seconds. Absolutely remarkable.