Winston Wang, son of Taiwan plastics tycoon Wang Yung-ching, said yesterday that he expects China's financial, insurance, securities and telecommunications industries to gradually open up to Taiwanese and foreign investors.
At a seminar on Guangzhou-Taiwan trade cooperation attended by over 400 Chinese and Taiwanese entrepreneurs, Wang said that China's liberalization measures will attract Taiwanese to invest even more in China.
Wang, who is chairman of the Hung Jen Group, said that China's import, export, wholesale, retail, maintenance, storage and transportation industries will also become gradually available to foreign investors now that it has entered the WTO.
If Taiwan can also relax restrictions on Chinese investments, bilateral trade can be expected to benefit by increased commercial and economic exchanges, he said.
Wu Chen-chang, head of an association for Taiwanese-funded businesses in Guangzhou, said that despite the impact of WTO entry for both sides of the Taiwan Strait on companies in both Taiwan and China, it is also an opportunity to pressure these companies to boost their competitiveness, develop new products and improve management standards. Guangzhou Mayor Liu Shusen said that his city is one of the first cities in China to open up more of its service sector to outside investors, particularly with regard to telecommunications, retail, insurance and travel.
"The liberalization of these sectors will undoubtedly bring about a new stage of development in Guangzhou-Taiwan commercial cooperation," Liu said.
The purpose of the two-day seminar is to discuss how Guangzhou and Taiwan can combine their strengths in industry and agriculture, as well as how the two sides can work together in the electronics and information, automotive and spare parts, plastics and refined petrochemicals, and agricultural, floral and processed food sectors, he said.
According to a Chinese tariffs and customs official, Beijing has already begun undergoing customs reforms to conform to WTO regulations and help promote cross-strait trade exchanges.
Meanwhile, a growing number of Taiwan companies relocate to China are seeking listings in local bourses, business sources said.
Unwritten rules and non-legal binding practices in China often take the place of clear regulations, presenting major difficulties for potential foreign investors, Wang said. The stock prices of companies listed in China cannot be more than 20-fold higher than their price-earning ratios.
Wang told Guangdong government officials at the seminar that such rules do exist and stressed that it will be very hard to attract foreign investors due to the low profits available from existing practices.
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