Caring about Penghu's industry development, the Industrial Upgrade and Transformation Service Team of the Ministry of Economic Affairs provides frontline services

To understand the state of Penghu's industry development and help local businesses upgrade and transform, Director-General Wu Ming-chi of the Industrial Development Bureau of the Ministry of Economic Affairs led members of the Industrial Upgrade and Transformation Service Team from July 31 to August 1 on a visit to Penghu, touring three local companies - Tianhe Fresh, Hongguo Biotech and Aishang Green Energy - to learn about the current state of Penghu's local industry development and listen to the views of local businesses.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs established the "Industrial Upgrade and Transformation Service Team" on October 15 last year. To strengthen assistance for industry development in offshore island areas such as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu, Lanyu and Green Island, it specifically set up the Traditional Industry Offshore Island Sub-team, combining the energies of legal entities including the Food Industry Research and Development Institute, the Industrial Technology Research Institute, the Corporate Synergy Development Center and the Stone and Resource Industry Research and Development Center, to jointly help offshore island industries move toward high-quality development in line with the industrial characteristics of each offshore island area.

Industries in offshore island areas are mainly based on the processing of agricultural, livestock and aquatic specialty products, as well as fermented and brewed food industries. Because each offshore island area has different distinctive geographical and cultural features and local products, they are suited to developing products with local cultural characteristics, combined with island ecological experiences and in-depth cultural tourism for promotion and marketing, so that industry development and sightseeing tourism can boost each other.

The companies visited by the Industrial Upgrade and Transformation Service Team this time included Tianhe Fresh, Hongguo Biotech and Aishang Green Energy. Their industry scopes include food processing, creative living and green energy industries. The three businesses are respectively working toward upgrade and transformation directions such as smartization, greening and cultural creativity, and their upgrade and transformation experience is worth learning from by the industry.

Tianhe Fresh founder Liu Tian-he once went through a life-threatening serious illness. After recovering, he began thinking about how to eat safe ingredients and started moving into non-toxic fishery aquaculture. At Penghu's natural marine fishing grounds, from catching to transport, the entire process uses ice-fresh barrels to preserve freshness, with no-contact transport. Worried that the fish might face contamination risks from traditional ice-making plants, he used reverse osmosis water to make flake ice, increasing the contact area so the fish body cools more quickly and also eliminating the risk of contamination of the fish body. Its organic, non-toxic ingredients and health foods have won widespread recognition. Later came the idea of transforming operations from place of origin to dining table, choosing to open the Tianhe Fresh Island Canteen in Taipei so that consumers can enjoy non-toxic ingredients more directly.

In the 103rd year of the Republic of China, Tianhe Fresh participated in counseling under the Industrial Development Bureau's Creative Living Industry Promotion Plan, operating with the concept of place-of-origin tourism, using service design concepts to add place-of-origin knowledge, extending from industry to life experience, adding interactivity to place-of-origin knowledge and fun to visits, bringing consumers from the dining table personally to the place of origin's fishing grounds and processing plants for in-depth understanding, and strategically cooperating with local lifestyle industries to form a ribbon-like experiential journey. Using the industry six-foldization strategy, consumers can truly feel the perfect combination of business operations and natural diet. Its successful transformation story even appeared on National Geographic Channel, reporting to the world the story of an innovative Taiwan entrepreneur in marine cage-net aquaculture.

Because Penghu's special climate and soil are very suitable for cactus growth, it has become a famous specialty plant, even enjoying the fine name of "Penghu apple." Local businesses make cactus into specialty products such as ice cream, juice, wine and cakes. To promote overall industry development, the Penghu County Government connected manufacturers to establish the Cactus Industry Association. Optimistic about the health benefits of cactus fruit, Dianjiangjia Food Company invested in 2010 to establish Penghu Hongguo Biotech Company to carry out development of a series of Penghu cactus industry foods and health products. It has already developed and launched many products including jelly, fruit tea jam, gummy candy, Mazu noodles, cactus pastry, lactic acid bacteria tablets and glucosamine tablets.

To solve changes in product color and loss of nutritional components in cactus products during shelf life, the service team helped integrate relevant technical energies, introducing high-temperature instantaneous sterilization technology from Taiwan fruit processing plants, paired with formula development by the Food Industry Research and Development Institute, improving product quality and extending shelf life through formulas, processes and packaging technology. At present, this Penghu specialty product has successfully expanded into export markets. The cactus jelly and cactus baked tea it developed, using low-temperature baking technology combined with innovative packaging, also won the honor of Taiwan's Top 100 Souvenirs.

In recent years, under the pressure of high oil and electricity prices and stricter environmental standards, achieving energy saving and carbon reduction goals has gradually received more attention. To build Penghu into a low-carbon tourism demonstration island, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, together with the Penghu County Government, built 27 locations with 330 smart energy replenishment facilities, 282 charging stations and 28 battery swap points across Penghu. Combining Penghu's local characteristics and tourism services, this makes Penghu an international leisure low-carbon island, and will also replicate the Penghu experience to other offshore islands and Taiwan proper, continuously promoting the vigorous development of the electric scooter industry.

In line with policy, Aishang Green Energy Company promotes electric scooters in Penghu. At the same time, with assistance from the Industrial Development Bureau, it moved from a business scope of only vehicle rental to developing localized services, including promoting low-carbon tourism and carrying out battery swap services, and cooperated with 23 7-11 stores and five CPC Corporation gas stations in Penghu, so that both local residents and outside tourists can directly use battery swap services. By combining Penghu's local characteristics and tourism services and making electric scooters the main body of green transport, Penghu becomes a low-carbon island in the true sense. At the same time, Penghu's successful transformation experience is replicated to other offshore islands and Taiwan proper, continuously promoting the development of the electric scooter industry.