The government has already announced its determination to join both the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, and there is no time to lose in integrating Taiwan into the global economy and in upgrading the nation's industries and adapting them to liberalization, Premier Jiang Yi-huah stated at today's Cabinet meeting.
The premier made these remarks after the Ministry of Economic Affairs reported on its industrial upgrading action plan, which has three focuses: reforming the traditional, strengthening the main, and nurturing the new and emerging industries.
The plan's four strategies are as follows:
- Raise the caliber and value of products.
- Set up complete domestic supply chains by replacing foreign suppliers with Taiwanese firms.
- Build up systemic problem-solving capabilities.
- Accelerate the promotion of new and emerging industries.
Enterprises will be encouraged to elevate the quality of their offerings by enhancing their smart, green, and cultural and creative capacities.
Policies on taxes, funding, land, science and technology (S&T) budget, personnel, and environmental construction will be amended to meet the needs of industrial transformation.
Tax breaks are not the government's primary means for spurring economic development, the premier stressed. Industrial upgrading has been an established policy of the administration in recent years, and the government is striving for breakthroughs with numerous policy tools, including funding acquisition, S&T and innovation research and development, brand-building, network establishment, talent cultivation and land activation.
Relevant ministries need only grasp the unique development needs and characteristics of different industries, as they do not lack for usable policy tools, Jiang said, expressing hope that agencies will work together to take the nation's companies to the next level.