Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) and government officials appeared unaware yesterday of the huge outflow of Taiwanese capital to China in recent years when Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers confronted them with statistics from the central bank.
“I am really surprised. I will have the Ministry of Economic Affairs look into it,” Wu said in response to legislators Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮), Kuo Wen-chen (郭玟成) and Wang Sing-nan (王幸男), who cited central bank statistics on remittances to and from China.
The statistics estimated capital outflow from Taiwan to China at about US$145 billion since President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took office in May 2008.
“During the six years between 2002 and 2007 under the previous DPP administration, capital outflow was about US$200 billion,” Kuo said. “How come the capital outflow was nearly US$150 billion in the two years of the KMT administration?”
Kuo said remittances from China to Taiwan were just over US$10 billion, while Wang said the percentage of companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange that have operations in China has soared to more than 70 percent since May 2008, with a total investment of more than US$500 billion.
The rapid growth of Taiwanese investment in China was shown by the fact that more than 85 percent of Taiwanese capital investment overseas from January to May this year went to China, Chai said.
The trio urged the government to draw up policies to direct businesses to diversify their investments in China, saying economic overreliance on China would force Taiwan into a disadvantageous position in negotiations with Beijing.
When asked by Kuo whether he was aware of the situation, Wu said: “Over the last 20 years, official statistics put the figure for Taiwanese investments in China at between US$70 billion and US$80 billion, while it was estimated unofficially at more than US$200 billion.”
Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥) said the statistics provided by the lawmakers were not inconsistent with statistics compiled by his ministry’s Investment Commission.
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