Investment Environment

A Highly Competitive Investment Climate and a Progressive Economic Development Vision

Globally recognized for its investment strengths, Taiwan offers superior geographical and cultural advantages, a vibrant yet stable economy, technological prowess, tightly integrated industrial infrastructure, professional talent and a skilled labor force.

Taiwan – located at the heart of the Asia-Pacific region – links Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia from its position off the southeast coast of China, with which it shares language and cultural ties. The Taiwan Straits between Taiwan and the China mainland serves as an essential passageway for major transportation routes in East Asia. Compared with other major Asian locations such as Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Singapore, Taiwan enjoys the shortest average sailing times to five major Asia-Pacific harbors as well as the shortest average flying time to seven major cities in the Western Pacific. These facts make it easy to see the investment advantages of Taiwan's geographic location.

Taiwan has a dynamic economy that features equal opportunity, complete freedom, and entrepreneurship, providing large, medium, and small enterprises with abundant room for development. Small and medium enterprises—98% of all businesses in Taiwan—are the backbone of economic development. Employing nimble operating strategies and rapid response to market demands, they are credited with having created the "Taiwan economic miracle" and making Taiwan a mature economy on par with many developed countries.

Efforts by the private sector and the government over more than 50 years of economic development have given Taiwan considerable advantages, including:

• A solid industrial base with strong vertical integration capability in the information and electronics industries
• Strong industrial R&D capabilities, high-quality human resources, knowledge-based industry, and a forceful trend toward high technology
• Enterprises with a high degree of entrepreneurial and innovative spirit, and with rich experience in international operations
• A venture capital industry that holds a position of leadership in Asia and has a strong ability to integrate technology, manpower, market opportunities, and capital for investment in emerging technology industries
• A complete infrastructure and well-developed information and communications facilities
• Small and medium enterprises that have rich experience in international operations and eagerness to engage in investment cooperation with foreign companies

According to the 2006-2007 global competitiveness report issued by the World Economic Forum (WEF), Taiwan ranked 13th in the world in 2006, and 4th among Asian countries for global competitiveness. In its 3rd report in 2006, Business Environment Risk Intelligence (BERI) of Switzerland ranked our investment environment sixth in the world and third in Asia. In its Sept. 2006 report, the Economist Information Unit's (EIU) ranked Taiwan's business environment (from 2006 to 2010) 19th among 60 countries worldwide, and 3rd among Asian countries behind only Singapore and Hong Kong.The assessments compiled by these institutions, all of which enjoy a high degree of public trust, make it clear that Taiwan has a low-risk investment environment that is suitable for investment, and that its investment environment is a highly advantageous one.

The Taiwan government is dedicated to attracting investment by establishing a free and open investment system, and by providing a good environment for corporate operations. The information included in this section of the site includes a description of Taiwan's advantages as well as information on key statistics, infrastructure, major business expenses, and related laws and regulations. Introductions to living and working in Taiwan—important factors for relocating and hiring personnel—have recently been added in response to investor inquiries and comments.

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