Taiwanese companies have steadily built up their intellectual property (IP) portfolios over the past decade — including through a steady rise in research and development (R&D), which hit a record last year, government figures showed on Monday.
R&D spending last year rose to NT$793.7 billion (US$27.59 billion), up from NT$439.7 billion in 2011, Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) data showed.
Last year’s figure was up 2.6 percent from a year earlier after adjusting for inflation, the DGBAS said.
A trade dispute between the US and China has prompted many foreign buyers to shift orders away from Chinese companies to Taiwanese suppliers, leading local companies to invest more in fixed assets, including IP development, the agency said.
Last year, fixed-asset investments rose 14.7 percent from a year earlier to NT$5.65 trillion, the first time it has exceeded NT$5 trillion, the DGBAS said.
Fixed-asset investments included NT$1.16 trillion in areas related to IP, or 20.5 percent of the total, a rise of 1.7 percentage points from a year earlier, the agency said.
The increase in R&D spending indicates that many local companies have sensed the importance of improving their intellectual property and reducing their vulnerability to foreign counterparts if investment in the area is lacking, agency officials said.
One example was the US’ ability to impose bans on exports of key technologies to Beijing because US companies own high-end technology patents that give them an edge over Chinese competitors, officials said.
A Ministry of Science and Technology survey also showed incremental growth in R&D spending among Taiwanese companies.
Enterprises in Taiwan spent NT$593.4 billion on R&D in 2020, up 11 percent from a year earlier, the highest rate of growth since 2005, the survey found.
Of that spending, 92.1 percent was in the manufacturing sector, while the service sector accounted for only 7.6 percent, the survey found.
Suppliers of electronic components, and makers of computers and optoelectronics were the two largest R&D spenders, investing NT$324 billion and NT$129.4 billion respectively in 2020, the DGBAS said.
Other major areas of fixed-asset investment last year were NT$2.14 trillion, or 37.9 percent of the total, in construction and NT$2.08 trillion, or 36.8 percent of the total, in machinery and equipment, it said.
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