The European Economic and Trade Office in Taipei yesterday encouraged Taiwanese businesses to expand investment in the 27-member state EU, which has a total population of 500 million people and accounts for 25 percent of the world's GDP.
Taiwan is currently the EU's 14th largest trading partner, accounting for 1.9 percent of EU's imports and 1.1 percent of EU exports, Guy Ledoux, the office's head, told a seminar yesterday.
The EU is Taiwan's fourth largest trade partner, accounting for 11 percent of the nation's exports and 9.5 percent of Taiwan's imports, Ledoux added.
"There's a substantial link between Taiwan and EU, but we need to make it stronger," he said.
He added that Taiwan lagged behind six other Asian economies -- including Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea -- in making EU-bound investments last year, while it once, in 2000, outperformed South Korea.
Currently, Taiwanese electronics brands such as BenQ (明基), Acer and Tatung (大同) as well as bicycle maker Giant (巨大) have set up shops in the EU.
The lack of a consulting agency to evaluate the investment risk has been attributed to Taiwan's slim investment share in Europe, Wang Chung-yu (王鍾渝), vice chairman of the Chinese International Economic Cooperation Association, said at the seminar.
Wen Si-chuang, chairman of Kinka Corp, sided with Wang, saying that Taiwanese corporations have a fear of investing in Europe simply because the cost is high compared to developing countries like China and India.
Another major concern in some EU countries is the language barrier, Wen said.
Six Taiwanese companies, including contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), made the 2025 Fortune Global 500 list of the world’s largest firms by revenue. In a report published by New York-based Fortune magazine on Tuesday, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. (better known as Foxconn) ranked highest among Taiwanese firms, placing 28th with revenue of US$213.69 billion. Up 60 spots from last year, TSMC rose 60 places to reach No. 126 with US$90.16 billion in revenue, followed by Quanta Computer Inc. at 348th, Pegatron Corp. at 461st, CPC Corp., Taiwan at 494th and Wistron Corp. at 496th. According to Fortune, the world’s
WEAKER ACTIVITY: The sharpest deterioration was seen in the electronics and optical components sector, with the production index falling 13.2 points to 44.5 Taiwan’s manufacturing sector last month contracted for a second consecutive month, with the purchasing managers’ index (PMI) slipping to 48, reflecting ongoing caution over trade uncertainties, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The decline reflects growing caution among companies amid uncertainty surrounding US tariffs, semiconductor duties and automotive import levies, and it is also likely linked to fading front-loading activity, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “Some clients have started shifting orders to Southeast Asian countries where tariff regimes are already clear,” Lien told a news conference. Firms across the supply chain are also lowering stock levels to mitigate
NEW PRODUCTS: MediaTek plans to roll out new products this quarter, including a flagship mobile phone chip and a GB10 chip that it is codeveloping with Nvidia Corp MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday projected that revenue this quarter would dip by 7 to 13 percent to between NT$130.1 billion and NT$140 billion (US$4.38 billion and US$4.71 billion), compared with NT$150.37 billion last quarter, which it attributed to subdued front-loading demand and unfavorable foreign exchange rates. The Hsinchu-based chip designer said that the forecast factored in the negative effects of an estimated 6 percent appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar against the greenback. “As some demand has been pulled into the first half of the year and resulted in a different quarterly pattern, we expect the third quarter revenue to decline sequentially,”
DIVERSIFYING: Taiwanese investors are reassessing their preference for US dollar assets and moving toward Europe amid a global shift away from the greenback Taiwanese investors are reassessing their long-held preference for US-dollar assets, shifting their bets to Europe in the latest move by global investors away from the greenback. Taiwanese funds holding European assets have seen an influx of investments recently, pushing their combined value to NT$13.7 billion (US$461 million) as of the end of last month, the highest since 2019, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Over the first half of this year, Taiwanese investors have also poured NT$14.1 billion into Europe-focused funds based overseas, bringing total assets up to NT$134.8 billion, according to data from the Securities Investment Trust and Consulting Association (SITCA),