In January - after 33 years! - I returned to Taiwan and at long last had an opportunity to visit the Hsinchu Science-Based Industrial Park. Long held as a good example of government-led technology-based economic development, HSBIP appeared in my 2006 book The Technopolis Columns, in the form of an account by Dr. Alvin Tong.
(Dr. Tong is a longtime friend and faculty colleague, and was the first Deputy Director-General of the park. He kindly arranged my park tour. The book is pictured here, as I exchanged gifts with Mr. Tuan, an official of the park).
HSBIP now hosts 432 companies, and 17 more are approved for tenancy. Of these companies, 376 are domestic and 54 are foreign. Collectively they employ 130,000 people (average age 30), generate 1.2 trillion New Taiwan Dollars in revenue, and have given rise to 4400 patents. HSBIP maintains relations with 24 "sister science parks" in twelve countries.
Only 1.3% of HSBIP tenant company employees have Ph.D.s. This surprising fact points up the theme of the park and brings us back to the park's name (science-based industrial park): Though it is commonly called a science park, it is really about manufacturing.
HSBIP officials attribute the park's success to the interaction of these factors:
- Environment and services
- Incentives and availability of venture capital
- Quality of human resources
- Industry clusters and industry-academic links for R&D.
The environment includes high quality of life at affordable cost, and business services including 24-hour automated customs for tenant companies' exports.
Tax incentives/exemptions, government investment, low-interest loans, and "R&D encouragement grants" round out the picture of incentives. However, the success of HSBIP has led the Taiwan government to plan to discontinue tax incentives for high-tech, and transfer them to solar and green industries.
Tsinghua University (science) and Chiao-Tung National University (engineering) are located on the periphery of the park, enhancing industry-university cooperation. ITRI also has two campuses adjoining the HSBIP, and runs incubators for new firms there.
The breakdown of tenant companies is:
- Semiconductor - 72%
- Optoelectronics - 16%
- Computers - 8%
- Telcom - small percentage
- Precision machinery - small percentage
- Biotech - 0.3%
In the photo above, you can see pictures of the CEOs of Taiwan's two largest semiconductor firms. Both frequent a temple (look at the background) near HSBIP to pray for their companies' success.
Postscript, quoted from TIME magazine March 23, 2009: "At Taiwan's Hsinchu Science Based Industrial Park, home to many of the island's flagship tech firms, most workers are taking unpaid leave at least one day a week. Ryan Wu, chief operating officer of the job-search website 1111 Job Bank, say conditions at Hsinchu have never been so dire. 'There's extreme panic right now,' Wu says."
