The government yesterday launched a cross-ministerial task force in an effort to boost Japanese firms’ investments in Taiwan to NT$30 billion (US$1.01 billion) annually by 2015, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said.
That program is an extension of a project launched last year to solicit investments from Japan, as investments by European and US companies have dwindled because of their sluggish home economies.
In recent years, Japanese firms invested NT$15 billion on average a year, mostly in the electronics, LCD and chip sectors, such as by memory chipmaker Elpida Memory Inc, the ministry said.
However, in the past few years, investments have come more from retail and food companies, such as cheap chic clothing chain Uniqlo.
Japanese investment in Taiwan totaled 441 cases last year, up from 340 cases in 2010, while the amount of Japanese investment grew to US$440 million last year from US$396 million in 2010, according to the Investment Commission.
The ministry said in a statement it “expects the cooperation between Taiwan and Japanese industries will significantly increase the country’s exports.”
Over the next five years, the task force aims to help form 500 strategic alliances between Taiwanese and Japanese companies in different industries, the statement said.
Chip packaging and new-generation AMOLED technology are expected to be the government’s new focus in the effort to boost bilateral cooperation.
The ministry yesterday said it also aimed to boost orders from Japan to total NT$3 trillion in the five-year period ending in 2015.
In the first two months of this year, orders from Japan dropped 7.25 percent year-on-year to US$6.35 billion, according to the ministry’s figures.
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