Government-approved foreign direct investment (FDI) rose 9.37 percent to US$7.88 billion in the first nine months of this year from a year earlier, mainly because of the effects of the US-China trade dispute, the Investment Commission said yesterday.
Last month alone, approved FDI in Taiwan was about US$1.36 billion, a year-on-year rise of 111 percent, mainly on the back of a US$450 million investment in a Yunlin County offshore wind farm construction and operation project by Yunneng Wind Power Co Ltd (允能風力發電), the commission said.
From January to last month, the electronic components sector had the largest approved FDI of US$2.67 billion, followed by the financial and insurance sector (US$1.5 billion), the machinery equipment manufacturing sector (US$750 million), the retail and wholesale sector (US$640 million) and the electricity and gas supply sector (US$470 million), commission data showed.
Approved Chinese investment in Taiwan in the nine-month period totaled US$87.30 million, down 54.63 percent from a year earlier, the commission said.
At the same time, the value of approved China-bound investment in the first nine months was US$2.82 billion, down 56.9 percent from a year earlier, mainly due to the trade dispute, which has prompted some Taiwanese companies based in China to accelerate their plans to return home.
The value of outbound investments, excluding to China, reached about US$5.45 billion, down 36.82 percent from the same period last year, the commission said.
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