A new Cabinet-level agency created to attract foreign investors and promote Taiwan as a good destination for foreign investments began operation yesterday, with Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) touting the nation’s improved investment environment following a cross-strait pact with China.
The “InvesTaiwan Service Center” is headed by Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥), with Yen Chung-kuang (嚴重光), deputy director of the ministry’s Department of Investment Service, serving as its chief executive officer.
“After Taiwan inked an Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement [ECFA] with China,investment risks in the nation have been reduced and government efficacy improved,” Wu said during the opening ceremony for the service center. “Taiwan is set to attract overseas investment.”
The center’s main responsibility is to provide a single window through which potential foreign investors can obtain any assistance or services needed to make a decision on investing in Taiwan, the ministry said.
About 20 officials from the government will work for the center initially, but the workforce is expected to eventually expand to 30 to broaden the scale of services, the ministry said.
“I’ll ensure that they [foreign investors] return home with loads of profits and money keeps rolling into the country,” Wu said, adding that Taiwan can help foreign investors explore the Chinese market. “China has become the world’s largest factory and market. No one doesn’t want to do business with China.”
The establishment of the center will improve the government’s efficiency in promoting overseas investment. Interested investors will only need to make one trip and they can get all their problems solved, Wu said.
Under the set-up, government agencies, including the MOEA, the Council for Economic Planning and Development, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications and the Department of Health, will continue to search for potential targets and then hand them off to the service center for follow-up assistance.
Wu said that as investors place great importance on the safety of the investment environment, detente across the Taiwan Strait has removed the biggest worry in their minds, and that cross-strait direct flights have reduced significantly travel time between the two countries.
Since Taiwan and China signed the ECFA in June, many foreign investors have expressed interest in investing in Taiwan and using it as a springboard to the huge Chinese market, sources at the MOEA said.
Because some of the consulting to be done by the center will involve technological issues, representatives of some research institutes, including the Industrial Technology Research Institute and Institute for Information Industry, have been sent to the center.
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