Taiwan lagged behind Asian countries in the first half of the year in both the number of cross-border acquisitions in Asia and their total worth, a media report said yesterday.
The Chinese-language Commercial Times yesterday cited statistics from the Council for Economic Planning and Development to report that Taiwan had closed only 10 acquisitions in the Asia-Pacific region in the first six months of the year, or 4.4 percent of all deals closed in Asia during the period — lower than Malaysia’s 37 deals, Hong Kong’s 28 deals, South Korea’s 26 deals, Singapore’s 21 deals and Thailand’s 12 deals.
STILL GAINING
That was, however, up from 2.4 percent last year, 1.1 percent in 2007 and 0.5 percent in 2006, despite Taiwan being a laggard in this regard since 2006, the report said.
In terms of transaction value, domestic companies totaled US$46 million in Asia-based acquisition deals for the first six months of the year, also lower than the total US$429 million in acquisitions completed by Hong Kong companies at the same time, South Korean companies’ US$1.13 billion or Singaporean companies’ US$1.9 billion, the report said.
The council’s statistics were based on the World Investment Report, published by the UN Conference on Trade and Development annually, the report said.
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