Taiwan has been ranked the second-best place to invest in Asia and the fourth-best in the world, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday, citing a US-based research institute’s latest report.
Taiwan received a total score of 72 points for profit opportunity recommendation (POR), the score used by Business Environment Risk Intelligence (BERI) to evaluate each country as an investment destination — lower than Singapore, Norway and the Netherlands — among the 50 countries surveyed in the institute’s report last month, the ministry said in a statement on its Web site.
BERI conducts its surveys on the investment climates and competitiveness of the world’s 50 major economies in April, August and December annually.
Maintaining its rating of Taiwan as “1B,” BERI suggested investors continue investing in the nation, citing the government’s initiative to sign free-trade agreements with other countries and stable cross-strait relations. It expects Taiwan to receive 73 points this year and 75 points in 2017, when it thinks Taiwan will become the third-best investment destination in the world.
The BERI survey evaluates a country’s investment environment in three sub-indices: operations risk, political risk and foreign exchange risk.
Taiwan was the second-safest place worldwide in terms of the operation risk sub-index, just behind first-placed Singapore, BERI said.
BERI expects Taiwan’s government to boost infrastructure construction by forming partnerships with the private sector to attract capital. The institute forecast Taiwan would remain the second-safest place concerning operation risk this year and in 2017.
In the political risk sub-index, Taiwan was ranked as the eighth-safest place worldwide, down from seventh place in last August’s survey. However, among Asian countries, Taiwan was second safest, again coming in one place behind Singapore.
Expecting Taiwan to maintain a friendly relationship with China and resume talks with Japan on the fisheries industry in the near future, BERI said Taiwan is likely to advance to be the sixth-safest country this year and in 2017.
Taiwan was deemed to have the fourth-lowest foreign exchange risk worldwide, following the Netherlands, Switzerland and Singapore, BERI said.
It estimated that Taiwan would enjoy a trade surplus of US$43.77 billion, up from US$40.78 billion a year ago, while foreign investment last year was expected to reach US$10 billion, in accordance with the target set by the government.
BERI said the government would promote foreign investment by further easing related regulations. It forecast that Taiwan would maintain its ranking as the fourth-safest place for foreign exchange risk this year and advance to third-safest in 2017.
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