The nation's investment commission reported Taiwanese investments in China and foreign investments in Taiwan doubled to record highs in the first nine months of this year.
Approved investments in China rose 106 percent year-on-year in the nine-month period to US$1.78 billion, while authorized foreign projects soared 111 percent to US$5.58 billion, the commission, which is under the Ministry of Economic Affair, reported.
Investments were centered in finance and insurance, telecommunications and electronics projects which accounted for more than 60 percent of total inbound investments, the commission said. Investments were largely from the Virgin Islands, and the Cayman Islands, as well as Singapore and the US.
Meanwhile, Taiwanese injection of capital into China grew with the US'granting of permanent normal trade relations to China by Washington and its anticipated accession to the WTO early next year, the commission added.
The investment body also approved US$3.07 billion in other outbound investment in the nine month period, up 22 percent year-on-year. Forty percent of those investments, according to the commission, were in companies registered in the Virgin and Cayman Islands.
In other economic news, a poll carried out by the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research indicated that 28.9 percent of domestic manufacturers surveyed in September were pessimistic about the country's economic prospects in the next six months, up from 26.0 percent in the survey carried out a month earlier, the institute said yesterday.
Some 16.5 percent of respondents believed the economy will improve in the six months from October to March, down from 24 percent in the previous month.
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