As a frontline promoter of Taiwan’s high-tech industries to India, as well as India’s massive market of 1.2 billion people to Taiwan, Taiwan’s de facto ambassador to India Ong Wenchyi (翁文祺) said that if there is anything that frustrates him it is the lack of support and resources provided by the government.
“India should be Taiwan’s economic hinterland for the next 10 to 20 years,” he told a delegation of Taiwanese journalists in New Delhi earlier this month.
“I hope that high-ranking decisionmakers call on the Taiwanese business sector to invest in India like they did when they encouraged investment in China. It is a policy that does not cost much, but would benefit many,” Ong said.
Except for diplomatic allies, Taiwan has signed only one trade pact with a non-allied country — China. It took Taipei and Beijing only a few months to ink the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA).
President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration hope that the deal, which came into force on Sept. 12 last year, will boost bilateral trade that already totals US$110 billion a year and help create 260,000 jobs.
The “early harvest” program, which forms the backbone of the accord, was implemented on Jan. 1 this year and trimmed tariffs on a list of goods and services. Ma has said he expects the program to boost the country’s GDP by 0.4 percent, create more than NT$190 billion (US$5.9 billion) in output value and produce a net gain of 600,000 jobs.
India has signed free-trade agreements (FTA) with various countries, including Japan and South Korea — two of Taiwan’s main competitors. India also signed a Trade in Goods Agreement with ASEAN countries in 2009, paving the way for the creation of the world’s largest FTA — a market of almost 1.8 billion people with a combined GDP of US$2.8 trillion.
Indian officials revealed to the Taiwan delegation that New Delhi and Taipei are exploring the possibility of signing a FTA. Taiwanese officials in Taipei, however, were quick to pour cold water on such prospects, saying the time was not ripe for such a deal.
Describing himself as a “missionary” and “instigator,” Ong said Taipei seldom sends trade delegation to Delhi and even when it does, such action tends to be unrelated to government policy.
In that context, the visit of Council for Economic Planning and Development Minister Christina Liu (劉憶如) last month was important, he said.
Liu led a 90-member Taiwanese delegation to India on a five-day tour. It was the largest trade delegation ever to visit India from Taiwan, led by the highest ranking official.
“India is one of the ‘BRIC -countries,’ but not many Taiwanese businesses are interested in investing in India,” he said. “It requires political will to make things happen. Everybody says India is an important market, but nobody is serious about putting money into it.”
David Hsu (徐大衛), director of the Economic Division of Taiwan de facto embassy — the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center in New Delhi — said it was important for Taiwanese businesses to venture into emerging markets such as India as early as possible.
“Since Japan and South Korea have dominated the markets in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Dhaka, Taiwanese businesses must go to other cities,” he said. “The bottom-line is that once you light a spark it spreads like a prairie fire.”
Ong agreed, saying that unless the party in power makes a bad decision, the current momentum and direction of Taiwan-India -economic relations is likely to continue, although India’s growth is slower than that of China.
“If China’s growth is like a Ferrari, that of India is like a big, slow ox cart,” he said. “Taiwanese businesspeople and political -decision-makers must decide whether they want to wait until India reaches the same level of economic growth as China to enter the Indian market or take the risk now.”
Chinese merchants have a hard time breaking into the Indian market, Ong said, but Taiwanese businesspeople are reluctant to moe to the country because they think life there is too hard. They also do not realize that the obstacles they encounter in India are also faced by businesspeople from other countries, he said.
“Their biggest problem is whether they are willing to take risks,” he said. “Taiwanese businesspeople have invested more than NT$350 billion in China and hope to get back what they have invested there. If they think they can wait until they have exhausted all the means to make money in China before coming to India, then it will be too late.”
George Lin (林隆登), director of the Taipei World Trade Center Liaison Office in Chennai, India, said it was important that Taiwanese businesses trained more people in international trade.
Lin said Taiwanese businesspeople prefer to invest in China because they speak the same language, have the same culture and practice the same customs.
“India is different,” he said. “I have even heard of people resigning on the spot after being told that they are to be stationed in India.”
Lin said Taiwanese businesses stand a good chance of making decent profits in India because India has a gigantic domestic market, which accounts for as much as 80 percent of Indian GDP.
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