Trade between Taiwan and mainland China is at near-record levels, just one encouraging sign of further rapprochement from both Taipei and Beijing. Nonetheless, there may be a few clouds on the horizon to darken the prospects of even closer economic ties between the two neighbours. On April 29, Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) released bilateral trade figures with China for the first two…
Rising international energy prices are hitting at the Taiwanese economy, generating uncertainty in the marketplace and threatening to slow growth. According to the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER), Taiwan is facing increasing inflationary pressures, in part due to the upward movement of fuel costs. Releasing its monthly business climate survey on May 28, which showed that an growing number…
Greenhouse gas emissions and increasing efforts to find alternative energy options are fuelling growth in the Taiwan's solar energy sector, with several foreign investors planning to put money into the country's industry. On June 17, DuPont Taiwan opened a new $3m photovoltaic research and development centre in the city of Taoyuan. Speaking at the opening of the facility, Tim McCann, vice president…
Amidst growing indications of a possible global recession, Taiwan's government is preparing a package of measures to strengthen the country's economy and insulate it against the effects of any broader downturn. With the Taiwanese economy coming under pressure from rising energy and commodities prices, the government announced on July 23 it had revised its year-end projections for the Consumer Price…
Taiwan ranks sixth in the world in terms of the competitiveness of its information technology (IT) industry, according to a white paper issued this month. "The means to compete: Benchmarking IT industry competitiveness" awarded Taiwan a score of 65.8 in its index of 64 countries. The US ranked first with 77.4. The index gauged the IT industry environment by taking into consideration the quality of…
----------------------------------------------------------------------- Over the holiday season, Oxford Business Group will also be taking a short break. The online economic briefings will resume on January 5. We send our best wishes to all our subscribers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Although the year got off to a promising start with new prospects…
Taiwan's non-profit research and development organisation, the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), reported on June 2 that medical equipment exports increased 10% in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period last year for a total of $205.7m. An analyst from ITRI said much of the growth was due to large international medical suppliers outsourcing their orders to subcontractors.…
First International Telecom (FiTEL) recently announced its decision to issue 250m common shares to raise an estimated $91m in fresh capital. The funds will be used to set up and operate a WiMAX (worldwide interoperability for microwave access) network in Taiwan. This announcement came after the Taiwanese telecom was one of six companies to be awarded a licence in July by the National Communications…
The competition for a larger piece of Taiwan's banking market has further heated up. The Central Deposit Insurance Corp (CDIC), which handles failed financial institutions in Taiwan, stated on December 14 that it will pay HSBC NT$47.49bn ($1.5bn) to take over debt-ridden Chinese Bank of Taiwan. HSBC will pump $300m to $400m of capital into the Chinese Bank to maintain financial ratios and increase…
Taiwan's computer industry is looking to shrug off the effects of the economic downturn in the US, hoping that new products and strong sales in other countries will take up the slack caused by the slowdown in the sector's biggest market. On April 16, Taiwan's Acer announced it would be joining the growing number of manufacturers bringing out low-cost notebook computers. This is part of an effort…
