The Cabinet announced yesterday that it will launch a special project at the end of the year to build bridges between businesses across the Taiwan Strait in the hope of attracting more foreign enterprises to invest in Taiwan.
At a press conference after the weekly Cabinet meeting, Minister of Economic Affairs Yiin Chii-ming (尹啟銘) said the plan would begin with encouraging businesses in Taiwan and China to pursue joint research, development and production, among other items.
The initial stage of the project will focus on establishing a cooperation mechanism between companies in Taiwan and China in fields such as herbal medicine, solar energy, automobiles, communications and the photovoltaic industry, he said.
Yiin said the Cabinet plans to hold dozens of cross-strait industrial conferences between December and the end of next year.
These are intended to encourage companies in Taiwan and China to initially seek out exchanges with each other, to subsequently discuss cooperation and to ultimately achieve cooperation.
Yiin said the special “bridge project” is part of the “Skynet Project” proposed by the ministry to improve the nation’s competitiveness by attracting more foreign investment.
He said the ministry’s ultimate goal in the “bridge project” is to attract more foreign investment through cross-strait industrial cooperation.
The ministry will hold a conference in October to attract global investment in the nation’s major infrastructure construction plans, he said.
Meanwhile, Yiin said the ministry had set a target of attracting NT$1.08 trillion (US$34.5 billion) in investment from the private sector by the end of this year.
The ministry has attracted NT$810 billion or 75.01 percent of its goal so far, Yiin said, adding that major investment from the private sector for the next four years is expected to amount to NT$4 trillion in total.
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