Taipei

Taiwan COUNTRY

2,612,605 CITY POPULATION

City Council GOVERNMENT TYPE

Introduction

Taipei is the capital city of Taiwan (officially referred to as the Republic of China), situated in the northern part of the country. The city is surrounded on all sides by another state’s territory; hence it is also referred to as Taiwan’s enclave. A vast part of the city lies in the triangular-shaped Taipei basin.

The city has a population of 26,46,204 as of October 2019 and ranks 4th out of 22. The population is dense at 9700 per square kilometer. The country follows a time zone of UTC+8. The national bird is the Blue Magpie, national flower is the Rhododendron and national tree is the Banyan.

Data & Facts

The city forms an integral part of the Taipei-Keelung metropolitan area. It is the 40th most populous urban area in the world, with a third of the Taiwanese population residing here. Taipei is the political, economic, educational, and cultural center of Taiwan and one of the major hubs in East Asia. Taipei is well connected with the rest of the world by road, rail as well as airways. There are various architectural and cultural amusements in the city like Taipei 101, Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall and many more.

Administration

Taipei is a special municipality that comes under the jurisdiction of the Executive Yuan (Central Government) of the Republic of China. The mayor of the city has a term of 4 years and is elected by the public directly. The last mayor in October 2019 was Ko Wen-Je. There are 5 internal administrative branches, 22 departments, 7 offices, 4 committees, and 2 public corporations.

Economy

As Taiwan’s business hub, Taipei has become one of the global cities in technology and electronics with a rapid development over the past years.

Taipei's main economic fields include the information and communications technology (hardware and software), biotechnology, general merchandising, financial services, and MICE industries.

The city also attracts many multinational corporations, international financial institutions, foreign consulates, and business organizations.

Taiwan is now a creditor economy, holding a large foreign exchange reserve of over USD$403 billion as of December 2012. The economy expands at 5% every year, with almost full employment and low inflation. The city’s GDP stands at USD$327 billion in 2014. According to the Economist, the city’s per capita GDP is higher than Seoul, London, and Paris. The city is home to 30 billionaires, ahead of many high tech cities like Los Angeles and Sydney.

Tourism is also a small but significant component of the local economy with almost 3 million international visitors per year. Taipei has many top tourist attractions and contributes a significant amount to the US$6.8 billion tourism industry in Taiwan.

Various television stations are located in Taipei such as CTS Education & Culture, CTS Recreation, CTV News Channel. Many newspapers are circulated throughout the city like Apple Daily, Central Daily News, Matsu Daily. Tourism is a major contributor to the economy with over 6.3 million travelers visiting the city in 2013, making it the 15Th most visited city globally. The National Chiang Kai-shek memorial hall is a major tourist attraction, landmark, and a reputed monument. The city also has various museums that are a big magnet to the sightseers.

The city celebrates many festivals throughout the year such as Double Ten Day fireworks and concerts, Ancestor’s Day, New Year’s Eve as per the solar calendar, Taipei Lantern festival which concludes the Lunar New Year holiday. Taipei also hosts many international events, the recent one being Summer Deaflympics. This event was followed by the Taipei International Flora Exposition. More than 50 films have been shot in Taipei. Taipei is home to 24 universities and is also considered a hub for educational purposes.

Business Environment

In order to stay at par with the competitive world, the Taipei government has taken various measures to upscale the economic development and business scenario. Taipei is the center of a myriad of manufacturing industries like electronic parts and equipment, machinery, food products, printing and data storage, media and reproduction, metal products, computers, etc. Taipei has mostly secondary and tertiary industries. In terms of capital, most of them are small and medium-sized enterprises. As of 2016, there are a total of 2,37,947 legally registered companies. The city focuses on encouraging the entrepreneurship spirit and innovation by giving loans, advances, etc. Various startup camps and programs are conducted throughout the year.

Infrastructure

Public services account for most of the transportation in the city. Taipei station serves as an all-inclusive station for bus, subway, conventional rail, and high-speed rail. All modes of public transport can be accessed by a smartcard. The Taipei metro, known as MRT, is based on highly advanced technology. Regular and fast railways connect Taipei to all cities of Taiwan and outside cities as well. The city has an extensive bus system with separate lanes for buses on the roads. A unique feature of the bus system here is that it is a collaboration of private and public services. Taipei has 2 major airports having connecting flights to most major places around the world.

Technology

Taipei has developed in the fields of Information and Communication technology. It has become an important hub of technological goods. Neihu Technology Park is the epicenter of the innovation scene of the city. There have been special advancements in the field of Artificial Intelligence with the companies of the likes of Google and Microsoft staking a claim.

According to a recent white paper by scholars Chih-Ming Shih, Chung-yu Tien and Chun-ying Li, they defined as it follows:

“Since the inception of urban planning in Taipei Neihu Technology Park in 1969, the combination of policy guidance from the government and private sector forces have successfully transformed this formerly decaying industrial area into a high-output urban technology park. Through literature reviews, this study analyzes the process of development for this model of eco-friendly technology park In summarizing the factors leading to the successful development of this area, we found that these included: the city government consistently provided active guidance and efficient management in the development of the park and its related management policies; developmental policies characterized by active guidance and efficient management led enterprises to move into the area; positive communication and coordination between the city government and enterprises produced a positive cluster effect; the factors of benign cycles and common benefits led to the ultimately successful development of the area.”