Taiwanese businesses invested US$129.54 billion in China last year -- a figure higher than the government's estimated US$35 billion, a survey released yesterday by the Chinese-language Fortune China Monthly (
"The number of registered China-based Taiwanese businesses has amounted to 68,115 while actual investments totaled US$77.36 billion," Lee Mon-chou (李孟洲), publisher of the Fortune China Monthly, said yesterday.
China's economic authorities said that contracts of China-bound Taiwanese investments are worth US$65 billion while actual investments amount to US$35.1 billion, according to the magazine.
According to the magazine's survey on Taiwanese businesses in 31 Chinese provinces, Jiangsu, Guangdong, Fujian and Zhejiang provinces as well as Shanghai city are the top five destinations for Taiwanese business capital.
A total of 53 Chinese cities are home to over 100 Taiwanese businesses, including the top five cities: Suzhou, Dongguan, Zhangzhou, Guangzhou and Wuxi, the survey found.
"Formosa Plastics Group's (台塑) Zhangzhou power plant and Tsann Kuen (China) Enterprise Co's (燦坤) Zhangzhou-based investments contributed to the city's emerging economic importance to Taiwanese businesses," Lee said.
He yesterday concluded that over 70 percent of Taiwanese businesses in China are clustered in 10 south-eastern Chinese coastal provinces.
Despite the huge discrepancy between the survey's findings and the government's statistics, pundits at a discussion held by the magazine yesterday agreed that the survey's total of US$129.54 billion in investments is closer to reality.
Vincent Siew (蕭萬長), chairman of the Chunghua Institution for Economic Research (中經院), yesterday said that some Taiwanese businesspeople made indirect investments worth around US$80 billion in China. The government's statistics failed to include this fact.
Tony Huang (黃慶堂), executive secretary of the Investment Commission, however, yesterday said that the government adopts different standards in calculating China-based investments. Despite calling statistics provided by Chinese authorities into question, Huang said that the emerging domestic-demand and service-oriented markets in China are a great attraction to Taiwanese businesses.
Stressing the importance of greater China markets, Siew, who is also convener of President Chen Shui-bian's (
Siew said that the framework, based on the free-trade Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) pact between Hong Kong and China, has been proposed on the basis that "Taiwan will never accept the CEPA model under `one country, two systems.'"
He said that, under the CEOF, Taiwan can steer clear of political interference and reinforce its economically strategic importance in the greater China market.
As Asia has recently started heated regional economic integration, Siew said that Taiwan should make efforts to avoid being marginalized or economically isolated in the boisterous regional economic activities.
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