Tenants of Taipei 101 office tower unveiled

Taipei, March 15, 2005 (CENS)--Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE) and Bayer Taiwan will be the top-two tenants of the office tower of Taipei 101, the world's tallest skyscraper, according to a list of renters recently released by the Taipei Financial Center Corp. (TFCC), the managing operator of the skyscraper.

TFCC has been actively inviting enterprises to station in the office tower since it was inaugurated on the last day of 2004. As of today, six companies will for sure move into the tower soon. In addition to TSE and Bayer, the other four confirmed renters are Cosmos Bank, Taiwan Cooperative Bank, Republic Vanguard Life Insurance Co. Taiwan Branch, and Fulland Securities Consulting Co.

TSE is going to take 9-12th floors of the tower, Bayer 53-54th floors and Taiwan Cooperative 57-58th floors. As for Cosmos, Republic Vanguard, and Fulland, they will each occupy one floor at 21st, 51st and 24th, respectively. The monthly rental payable by the said renters average at around NT$2,000-3,000 (US$58.8-88.24 at US$1 = NT$34) per ping (one ping= 36 square feet), the renting span is about three to five years.

Harace Hung-Ming Lin, president of TFCC, disclosed that so far more than 30% or 15,000 pings of the available office space have been booked, and the occupation percentage is expected to grow to 60% at the end of this year. Lin assured that the entire tower would be 95% booked by the end of 2006.

Bayer Taiwan, taking an area of 1,600 pings, expected to be the first enterprise to move into the tower, probably in mid-April. The other five tenants will later on take the action to move. Apart from the above-mentioned six renters, some 20 enterprises in different industries are expected to follow suit.

The tower seems to have become more and more popular with enterprises after it was officially inaugurated some three months ago, and the rental office space in the tower has become hot among potential renters. According, TFCC is said to raise the office rental by 5%-10% beginning this year, and will not rule out further raising the renting rate next year.