With the EU-Taiwan Factfile showing that Taiwan’s investment in the EU remains low, despite a significant increase, EU Representative to Taiwan Frederic Laplanche encouraged both sides to further bilateral trade and investment.
The EU is the largest economy in the world and the largest market, with 507 million consumers with high purchasing power, Laplanche said in a press statement as he commented on the annual report published by European Economic and Trade Office (EETO) on Tuesday night.
“The economic potential can only be fully utilized with appropriate investment in the EU. Bilateral investment between the EU and Taiwan is essential to our economic cooperation, and we wish to encourage further growth on this front,” Laplanche added.
According to the Factfile report, foreign direct investment (FDI) in the EU by Taiwanese companies almost tripled from 301 million euros (US$409.47 million) in 2011 to 818 million euros in 2012, and FDI stock reached 2 billion euros.
Nonetheless, Taiwan’s contribution to inward FDI flows of the EU, which totaled 291.8 billion euros in 2012, was still very small compared with other investors, the report showed.
The largest foreign investor in the EU in 2012 was the US (98.8 billion euros), while other major sources of investments that year included Switzerland (19.7 billion euros), Canada (19.7 billion euros), ASEAN (14 billon euros), South Korea (4.3 billion euros) and Japan (3.9 billion euros), the Factfile said, based on data from Eurostat, the statistical office of the EU.
Taiwanese FDI in the EU continued growing last year, as statistics from the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Investment Commission showed that about 3.2 percent of Taiwan’s outbound investment flows went to the EU that year, or US$168.9 million, compared with US$71.5 million in 2012, the report said.
The main investment destinations for Taiwan in the EU were the Netherlands, the UK, Germany and the central European countries, the report said.
The EU remained Taiwan’s largest foreign direct investor last year, as it has been historically.
According to the Investment Commission, Europe provided 14 percent of all FDI flows into Taiwan last year, for a total of US$686 million, with the Netherlands being the largest EU investor in Taiwan, representing 34 percent of the European FDI to Taiwan, or US$237 million, the report said.
Based on Eurostat data, the report said that out of the total 5.2 trillion euros of EU outward FDI stock in 2012, 7.4 billion euros was invested in Taiwan, while the major destinations for the EU investment flows were the US, ASEAN and China.
With respect to trade relations, the EETO said in its press statement that while trade in goods between Taiwan and the EU has “remained somewhat stagnant” over the past 10 years, bilateral trade in services doubled over the same period.
EU exports to Taiwan grew by 4.4 percent from 15.8 billion euros to 16.5 billion euros last year, while its imports from Taiwan fell by 2 percent from 22.5 billion euros in 2012 to 22.1 billion euros that year, resulting in a reduction of its trade deficit with Taiwan from 6.7 billion euros in 2012 to 5.5 billion euros last year, the report said.
The report said trade in goods between the EU and Taiwan increased by 0.5 percent last year compared with 2012, while trade in services increased by 8.9 percent in 2012.
People-to-people exchanges between the EU and Taiwan saw very positive developments in education, science and technology, environmental protection and human rights, as well as cooperation on culture, tourism and immigration, the EETO said.
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