Determined to shift Taipei's business district eastward, the Taiwan government has made available a 376,740-square-foot site near the Taipei World Trade Centre for the development of a 40-storey flagship financial building.
The project brings Taipei a step closer to its goal of carving out an Asia-Pacific regional operations centre in Taiwan for multinationals by the year 2000.
Charles Lin, of Taipei's Urban Development Department, said a technical consultant responsible for the architecture, the leasing price and identification of potential investors and tenants would be announced by the middle of this month.
He said 40 consultancy companies were competing for the project, for which construction costs were estimated at NT$20 billion (about HK$5.55 billion).
'The government's investment would be to release the site for the project,' he said.
Based on current market prices, Mr Lin said the site was worth $30 billion.
