Top trade officials from Mongolia and Taiwan held a forum yesterday in an attempt to strengthen economic ties between the two countries and attract Taiwanese investors the massive and unexploited Mongolian market.
"Many Taiwanese businesspeople are not familiar with Mongolia, but I assured them that they will find the nation a market full of potential if they would only visit it," said Huang Hua (
Taiwan currently has no diplomatic ties with Mongolia. The two countries set up representative offices in each other's capitals last September.
Mongolia, which seperates China and Russia with its vast 1.564 million km2 territory and a sparse 2.5 million population, depends on its economic lifelines of mining and the oil industry, which account for 65.5 percent of the country's exports. Wool is another important Mongolian export, as the nation is the second-largest supplier of cashmere in the world.
Mongolia began its transformation from a planned economy to a market economy in 1990, and the Mongolian government started reforming its economy by privatizing a large number of state-run companies and ushering in foreign investments in 1996.
According to Mongolia's Foreign Investment and Trade Agency, approximately 2,000 foreign companies in Mongolia made total investments of US$489 million, from 1990 to the end of 2001.
Last year, Taiwanese exports to Mongolia totaled US$4.94 million, and imports of Mongolian goods in Taiwan were US$92,341. There are 10 Taiwanese companies operating in Mongolia with investments of US$9 million. Half of the Taiwanese companies with a presence in Mongolia are investing in the textile industry.
Besides mining and textiles, tourism and consumer-goods manufacturing are rising stars in Mongolia.
"The most valuable resource that Mongolia has is its primitive environment, which could attract a huge number of nature lovers if adequate infrastructure is built," Huang said.
As for consumer-goods, Huang said due to unfavorable weather conditions and lack of a domestic manufacturing industry, Mongolia is highly dependent on imports of food and consumer goods from countries such as Russia, China and South Korea.
One businessman agreed with Huang, and said he had plans to tap into the food and manufacturing sectors in Mongolia.
"I think the foodstuff industry is a worthwhile investment due to the continual shortage of food -- especially during winter, which lasts seven months in the country," said Michael Yu (
Yu also said Mongolia could become a manufacturing center in central Asia by using cheap res-ources from China to produce high added-value products.
However, transportation is the main obstacle that may dampen the interest of Taiwanese investors, as Mongolia is remote from Taiwan and there are no direct flights between the two countries, said Liu Kun-chun (
"I admit that Mongolia has many advantages that are worthy of investment, but I won't comment on the inconvenient and costly transportation," said one official from the Importers and Exporters Association of Taipei (
When Lika Megreladze was a child, life in her native western Georgian region of Guria revolved around tea. Her mother worked for decades as a scientist at the Soviet Union’s Institute of Tea and Subtropical Crops in the village of Anaseuli, Georgia, perfecting cultivation methods for a Georgian tea industry that supplied the bulk of the vast communist state’s brews. “When I was a child, this was only my mum’s workplace. Only later I realized that it was something big,” she said. Now, the institute lies abandoned. Yellowed papers are strewn around its decaying corridors, and a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin
ELECTRONICS BOOST: A predicted surge in exports would likely be driven by ICT products, exports of which have soared 84.7 percent from a year earlier, DBS said DBS Bank Ltd (星展銀行) yesterday raised its GDP growth forecast for Taiwan this year to 4 percent from 3 percent, citing robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI)-related exports and accelerated shipment activity, which are expected to offset potential headwinds from US tariffs. “Our GDP growth forecast for 2025 is revised up to 4 percent from 3 percent to reflect front-loaded exports and strong AI demand,” Singapore-based DBS senior economist Ma Tieying (馬鐵英) said in an online briefing. Taiwan’s second-quarter performance beat expectations, with GDP growth likely surpassing 5 percent, driven by a 34.1 percent year-on-year increase in exports, Ma said, citing government
UNIFYING OPPOSITION: Numerous companies have registered complaints over the potential levies, bringing together rival automakers in voicing their reservations US President Donald Trump is readying plans for industry-specific tariffs to kick in alongside his country-by-country duties in two weeks, ramping up his push to reshape the US’ standing in the global trading system by penalizing purchases from abroad. Administration officials could release details of Trump’s planned 50 percent duty on copper in the days before they are set to take effect on Friday next week, a person familiar with the matter said. That is the same date Trump’s “reciprocal” levies on products from more than 100 nations are slated to begin. Trump on Tuesday said that he is likely to impose tariffs
HELPING HAND: Approving the sale of H20s could give China the edge it needs to capture market share and become the global standard, a US representative said The US President Donald Trump administration’s decision allowing Nvidia Corp to resume shipments of its H20 artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China risks bolstering Beijing’s military capabilities and expanding its capacity to compete with the US, the head of the US House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party said. “The H20, which is a cost-effective and powerful AI inference chip, far surpasses China’s indigenous capability and would therefore provide a substantial increase to China’s AI development,” committee chairman John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican, said on Friday in a letter to US Secretary of
RSS