Taipei Travel

The monopoly system of Taiwan started during the Japanese colonial era. In 1901, Taiwan Governor’s Office consolidated the Taiwan Pharmaceutical Factory, Taiwan Salt Bureau and Taiwan Camphor Bureau into the “Monopoly Bureau of the Taiwan Governor’s Office”, marking an important beginning of the monopoly system. Before the Retrocession of Taiwan, the eight commodities included in the monopoly system were: tobacco, liquor, opium, salt, camphor, matches, petroleum and measuring instruments. The building was constructed in 1913 to cater to the voluminous workload of the monopoly system. It was designed by an engineer of the Construction and Maintenance Division of the Taiwan Governor Office, Matsunosuke Moriyama (1870 -1949) and was completed in 1922. The architectural style is similar to that of the Presidential Office, and it became the model structure that was copied after by other elites architectural projects at that time. The building features an L-shaped floor layout and there is a semi-circular gable at the facade. The foyer has a spherical roof top and the façade; both the right and left wings feature a column-style design, giving the exterior of the building a rich and grandiose look.

After the Retrocession of Taiwan, the Taiwan Provincial Administrative Executive Office, in an effort to maintain its financial resources and minimize the taxpayers’ burden, decided to continue the monopoly system. The organization was restructured as “the Taiwan Province Monopoly Bureau”, with the number of monopolized items down to five: tobacco, liquor, camphor, matches and measuring instruments. By 1968, the two items that remained in the monopoly system were tobacco and liquor.