The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) said yesterday it welcomes foreign investment, but that it would protect the rights of employees and customers.
The commission made the statement after the US trade agenda for this year criticized Taiwan’s investment climate as lacking the transparency and predictability necessary to attract foreign investment, especially in financial services.
This has led to rejections of investment deals, excessive delays and a low levels of investment in the private equity sector, the US trade agenda said.
The White House impression reflected the complaints of the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in Taipei, which said in its latest position paper that Taiwan lags far behind Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Singapore in attracting foreign investment.
In June 2012, the Investment Commission rejected US private equity fund Orion Investment Co’s bid for Yageo Corp (國巨), the nation’s biggest maker of passive components used in electronic devices, a move that AmCham private equity committee chairman William Bryson said last year had ended hopes of another 10 or 11 investment deals valued at about US$20 billion.
Last year, Taiwan ranked second to last among 17 Asian countries in attracting private equity fund investment, behind Sri Lanka and ahead only of Pakistan, the AmCham report said.
AmCham issued a press statement on Jan. 26 to praise a series of deregulations for financial institutes.
The commission yesterday said it would heed the US trade group’s advice when formulating criteria for assessing investment proposals.
It said it would also help improve communication with the US government through bilateral investment task forces.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day