The Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) said yesterday it helped a domestic firm to secure bank loans and set up the first plant devoted to making solar power products and systems on the outlying island of Kinmen.
The council said it had approved the application from SolarGate Technology Corp (茂鑫能源公司) to obtain bank loans of NT$25.5 million (US$830,6000) to build a production line in Jinsha Township (金沙) of Kinmen County.
Liang Wai-wei (梁海威), senior specialist at the CEPD’s department of financial analysis, said SolarGate plans to invest over NT$400 million (US$1.3 million) in building the production line and ship its products to China through small three links services.
The investment project is expected to create 150 jobs for the remote county and help boost its economic development, Liang said, adding that SolarGate acquired the loan from First Commercial Bank (第一銀行) at the end of last month with an interest rate of 4.225 percent.
SolarGate, established in August 2003 with capitalization of NT$80 million, is eyeing the solar energy market across the Taiwan Strait, Liang said.
“That explained why the company chose to build the production line in Kinmen,” as the county is geographically much closer to China’s Fujian Province than to Taiwan proper, Liang said.
The company said on its Web site that it is capable of serving all customized requests for solar power products and systems, including stand-alone systems, grid tied systems and total solutions for a variety of applications.
The council expressed hope that SolarGate’s investment plan would bring high-tech development to the county, which has a population of 50,000.
A former military preserve, Kinmen was returned to the civilian government in the mid-1990s and travel to and from Taiwan was reopened.
Direct travel between Kinmen and China was opened in 2002 and there has been extensive tourism development on the island in anticipation of Chinese tourists.
Liang said the loan fell in line with the government’s effort to promote economic development in the outlying island groups of Kinmen, Penghu and Matsu.
To that end, the council has encouraged investors to take advantage of its offshore construction fund that set aside NT$1.5 billion for preferential loans and another NT$4 billion for credit loans this year.
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