Local companies and the government should look beyond China when considering corporate investments, a local trade organization said yesterday during the release of its competitiveness study on ASEAN and Indian economies.
The 254-page report by Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers’ Associations (電電公會, TEEMA) is the product of its 2,012 surveys of local companies in 11 countries.
The data compiled compared the nations in terms of competitiveness, overall investment environment, investment risk, corporate rating and across four major sectors — fishing/ farming, information technology communication, traditional industry and services.
“Overall, the combined results show Singapore and Brunei as the top two nations best positioned for general foreign investments, while the bottom two are Laos and Myanmar,” Leu Horng-der (呂鴻德), TEEMA’s director at the Center for Global Taiwanese Business Studies, told a media gathering.
Leu, who is also a business professor at Chung Yuan Christian University, said Singapore’s No. 1 ranking was not surprising because the city-state has a highly diversified economy and well-developed legal system.
Brunei came in second because of its highly centralized petroleum and refining industries, he said.
The TEEMA report comes at a time when most Taiwanese companies are eyeing China as their target for major investments. Government data show that more than 60 percent of outbound business investments went to China this year.
“Taiwanese companies have a herd mentality,” Chiang Shi-huang (蔣士煌), deputy director-general of the Bureau of Foreign Trade, told the conference.
Chiang said he hoped that with TEEMA’s report, Taiwanese companies would consider ASEAN countries and India when mapping their foreign investment strategy.
“Although China has a population of 1.3 billion and the internal demand is overwhelming, the combined population of ASEAN plus India is more than 1.7 billion. This is an opportunity that cannot be missed and is the premise behind the research in terms of both potential consumer demand as well as strategic business positioning,” TEEMA said in the report.
The report also showed that in terms of sector ranking, Indonesia’s Batam Island led in fishing and farming, Singapore in information technology communication, Malaysia’s Penang in traditional industry and Singapore in the service industry.
Leu said that when Taiwanese businesses look to investment overseas, they need to weigh the pros and cons of various cities’ public infrastructure, technical expertise, labor force, compensation, the regulatory environment and associated expenses amongst many other factors before setting up operations.
“This seems like a lot of work, we do not recommend putting all your eggs in one basket [China],” he said.
Cairo’s new monorail slices across the city skyline, running above the familiar chaos of blaring horns and aging buses’ exhaust fumes that mark rush hour below. The US$4.5 billion monorail, opened this month, is among Egypt’s most prominent new transport projects, part of a debt-funded infrastructure drive criticized for sapping state finances while bringing limited benefits to most of the country’s 109 million people. “It feels like you’re in a different country,” said Ramy Sayed, a restaurant manager, aboard a driverless Innovia 300 train. “No noise, no traffic, we’re not used to this.” The eastern line runs 56km from the bustling middle-class
Starlux Airlines Co (星宇航空) today unveiled a long-haul network expansion plan at a shareholders’ meeting in Taipei, including direct flights to Barcelona, Spain, and Zurich, Switzerland, as well as a service connecting Taipei, Sydney and New Zealand. Starlux is to become the first Taiwanese carrier to offer non-stop services to the two European cities, while the inaugural oceanic route is expected to expand transit opportunities within the Australia-New Zealand market, Starlux said. Flight services to Chicago, Dallas, Washington and New York are under evaluation, the airline added. Prior to the shareholders’ meeting, the airline earlier this year announced that it would be
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Taiwanese prosecutors suspect that three people successfully smuggled at least one shipment of Nvidia Corp artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China after first exporting them to Japan, people familiar with the matter said. The trio was detained last week by the Keelung District Prosecutors’ Office for allegedly falsifying documents related to exports of Super Micro Computer Inc servers containing advanced Nvidia chips, which the US has barred from sale to China without a license from Washington. The move marked Taiwan’s first public crackdown on AI chip diversion after years of pressure from the US to take a more active role in curtailing
RSS