The Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday it aims to attract 100 more foreign enterprises to open regional offices in Taiwan within the next two years.
Counting the existing 200 foreign firms, Taiwan would become a trade hub for more than 300 foreign firms to operate their businesses in the Asia-Pacific market, which would bring in NT$62.64 billion (US$2.13 billion) in foreign investment and 10,656 jobs in three years, the ministry said.
PRIME REAL ESTATE
“Given its location, Taiwan can serve as a trade hub in the Asia-Pacific market, but there are still some regulations that should be removed to make the country as competitive as Singapore and Hong Kong,” Minister of Economic Affairs Chang Chia-juh (張家祝) said.
“We hope the investment environment becomes more attractive so that more foreign firms will be willing to choose Taiwan as a place to hunt for talent and to provide high value-added services,” he said.
PATENT POOL
Meanwhile, Kai Hsiao (蕭國坤), general manager of Hewlett-Packard Co’s Taiwan bureau, said the government should also try to promote talent to the global market.
“Taiwan is by far the world’s largest country in terms of the number of patents it gains,” Hsiao said. “However, the government needs to think how to better help local talent utilize their skills or patents while attracting more firms to enter the market.”
Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) director Steven Yang (楊家彥) said the nation remains appealing to foreign enterprises wanting to explore the Greater China market.
Many foreign enterprises have chosen not to invest in Japan because they understand there is tension in the relationship between China and Japan, he said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last