The annual production value of Taiwan's radio frequency identification (RFID) industry is expected to expand by a factor of 12.5 over the next three years to reach NT$10 billion (US$303.95 million) by 2009, the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) said in a report released yesterday.
This will increase the nation's RFID production value to 4 percent of the world's total, the report said.
It said that RFID technology, an automatic identification method that relies on storing and remotely retrieving data using devices called RFID tags, was considered one of the 10 most important technologies of this century, with more than 6,000 patent applications having been filed over the past 10 years for RFID-related products.
A report released by US-based ABI Research valued the global RFID market last year at US$1.41 billion, with the value expected to increase to US$5.1 billion this year, US$6.39 billion next year and US$11.5 billion in 2011.
To promote applications of RFID technology, the South Korean government implemented six large-scale pilot RFID projects in the public sector in 2004 and 2005 and is set to invest US$30 million per year from 2005 to 2010 to boost the development of the RFID industry.
As the development of Taiwan's RFID industry has seen a late start compared with other countries, it is necessary for the government to introduce a policy to enhance the industry, the CEPD said.
A report published by the Institute for Information Industry last year shows that there were 149 manufacturers of RFID products in Taiwan last year, with the number of workers totaling 578 and combined production value amounting to NT$814 million.
While the electronic seal system used by Taiwanese harbors is one of the more innovative applications of RFID technology, a number of local businesses, including Foxconn Technology Group (鴻準精密), Mosel Vitelic Inc (茂矽), Yuen Foong Yu Group (永豐餘集團), Cheng Loong Corp (正隆造紙) and Asia Smart Tag Co (辰皓電子), are also developing RFID-related products, the CEPD said.
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