Premier Su Tseng-chang on Thursday received a Ministry of Economic Affairs briefing on three major programs for boosting investor confidence in Taiwan. Amid the impacts of the U.S.-China trade war and the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide, Taiwan has turned crisis into opportunity and is still expected by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to turn out positive economic growth. Moreover, the number of companies investing in Taiwan and the amount they invest are both increasing steadily, the premier said.
The government must seize opportunities from the realignment of global supply chains to drive investment in Taiwan, and use the nation's competitive advantages to develop the Six Core Strategic Industries (namely, information and digital technologies, 5G networks and cybersecurity, biotech and medical technology, national defense and strategic industries, green energy and renewable resources, and strategic stockpile industries). These efforts will lay a strong foundation for Taiwan's economic growth for decades to come, Premier Su said.
Nearly 700 companies and investment exceeding NT$1.1 trillion (US$38 billion) have been reviewed and approved since last year when the government began promoting the three investment programs, which are aimed at overseas and domestically based Taiwanese, said the premier. Furthermore, it is anticipated that greater than NT$620 billion (US$21.4 billion) of this total will be committed to actual investment projects by the end of December, bringing employment opportunities for 94,000-plus workers.
Taiwan's initiatives to attract and repatriate capital and investment even before the coronavirus reshaped the global economy, together with a big push this year to expand and accelerate publicly funded infrastructure, have elevated the country into the small minority of nations worldwide able to maintain economic growth. Whether the forecast comes from the ADB or the IMF, Taiwan is the only one of Asia's four tiger economies expected to post a positive rate of growth in 2020. Premier Su said that while bucking the trend and stabilizing the economy has been no easy task, the world has taken notice of the monumental efforts undertaken by the people of Taiwan to achieve this success.