TAIPEI (Bloomberg) Taiwan plans to spend NT$27 billion ($824 million) in the next four years to develop its biotechnology industry, President Chen Shui-bian said.

The island's Defence Ministry will provide 25 hectares (62 acres) of land in Taipei to develop a national biotechnology industry park, while the cabinet's National Science Council will spend NT$12.1 billion on infrastructure for the zone, Chen said in a speech yesterday at a biotech summit posted on the web-site of the presidential office.

Academia Sinica, a state-owned agency, will invest nearly NT$15 billion to build research buildings and laboratories in the zone, Chen said. The government also plans to set up a second biotechnology zone in Hsinchu, northern Taiwan, for vaccine developers and animal-testing laboratories, and a third site, in the south of the island, for developers of dental and surgical instruments, he said, without giving a timeframe or cost.

Taiwan had more than 1,100 biotechnology companies at the end of last year, with combined annual revenue of NT$179 billion and average annual earnings growth of 13 percent over the past five years, Chen said in the speech.

The cabinet aims to boost revenue in Taiwan's precision machinery, digital communications and biotechnology industries to NT$1 trillion each, Premier Chang Chun-hsiung told parliament June 1, without giving their current earnings. The semiconductor and flat-panel display industries each have annual revenue of more than NT$1 trillion, Chang said.