Tough times getting tougher at Taiwan's Science Parks

The news just doesn't seem to get any better at Taiwan's troubled science parks. Revenues are down and large numbers of people are losing their jobs. In just the last few days, the Taiwanese business media has reported that about 200 people were on unpaid leave at the country's 3 science park. That's about to get much, much worse because chipmaker ProMOS announced yesterday that it's laying off 1,200 people at the Central Taiwan Science Park. Some reports say the figure may be over 1,300 layoffs. Not only that, it appears that Hsinchu Science Park's Miaoli and Yilan extensions are having a very hard time attracting clients.

The Taiwanese government has made a big bet on its science park strategy -- Hsinchu Science Park ,Central Taiwan Science Park, and Southern Taiwan Science Park. And then there's the new 'software park' in Taichung that's trying to get off the ground. So, it's no surpise that serious questions have been raised in the national legislature and it hasn't helped that the government has sometimes painted too optimistic a picture about how things are going (see here for example). The Taipei Times reports thismorning on its website that lawmakers are concerned over zero revenues created at Hsinchu Science Park’s extensions. The government plans to send a team to Japan later this month to try to attract Japanese companies to set up shop at the science parks.

for other coverage by the Accelerator Gazette on Taiwan's science and software parks, see:

http://acceleratorgazette.com/content/tough-times-taiwan-science-parks

http://acceleratorgazette.com/content/central-taiwan-science-parks-reven...

http://acceleratorgazette.com/content/hon-hai-invests-big-taiwan-incubat...

http://acceleratorgazette.com/content/taiwans-taichung-software-park-get...

http://acceleratorgazette.com/content/tough-times-continue-taiwans-scien...