Economy
Taichung has a vibrant, diverse economy that incorporates traditional businesses, small family-run shops and factories, large industrial areas, and a thriving commercial sector.
The heart of Taichung’s economy has long been the small business. The small business sector still thrives in the city and is in most evidence in the downtown area with small eateries, traditional markets, and other various family businesses. Taichung's Chun Shui Tang teahouse (春水堂) is where bubble tea was invented, by a teahouse owner, Liu Han Chie (劉漢介). Taichung is most famous for its suncakes (taiyang bing).
Taichung is an important center for a number of key industries. The city is a major manufacturer of bicycles and related parts, and sporting goods. Small metalworking, mold and die enterprises abound. During the heyday of the Taiwanese Miracle, the city hosted the famous "Shoes Nest," hundreds of small firms involved in the shoe industry, which has since moved to China. Nike's Asian design center is located in Taichung.
Xitun District is the home of Taichung’s Industrial Zone. Taichung’s World Trade Center Building is the symbolic heart of the zone, where various trade shows and exhibitions are held throughout the year. Most of Taichung’s traditional manufacturing base is in this area, which is the area of Taichung City that is nearest the port. In the northeast part of Xitun District, along the border with neighboring Taichung County, there is a science-based Industrial Park.
The growing prosperity of Taichung residents has resulted in the explosive growth of the upscale retail sector, with the opening of massive up-market department stores, as well as the construction of several luxurious condo complexes in the rapidly developing areas near a newly constructed government complex, as well as the growth of up-market neighborhoods in Beitun District.
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Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his living, to get “a good job,” but to perform well a certain work; and, even in a pecuniary sense, it would be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that they would not feel that they were working for low ends, as for a livelihood merely, but for scientific, or even moral ends. Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)