Economy

High Economic Freedom

As a member of the international organizations such as WTO and APEC, Taiwan is highly free in economic activities. It follows the international practices and has a healthy system to protect property rights. According to the "2017 Index of Economic Freedom" published by the Heritage Foundation (a United States think tank) and the Wall Street Journal, Taiwan was ranked 11th among the 180 countries in the world. The ranking was Taiwan's best performance in the index to date. Taiwan was ranked 5th in the Asia-Pacific region, only behind Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand, ahead of Japan, South Korea and China.

The index comprises 12 categories - property rights, government integrity, judicial effectiveness, tax burden, fiscal health, government spending, business freedom, labor freedom, monetary freedom, trade freedom, investment freedom and financial freedom. Based on its aggregate score, each of 180 countries graded in the 2017 index was classified as "free" if it scored 80 or higher; "mostly free" if scoring between 70-79.9. In this year's report, Taiwan scored 76.5 in economic freedom, which was rated as a "Mostly Free" economy and showed improvement in the areas of property rights, government integrity, government spending, business freedom, labor freedom, and monetary freedom.

Looking into the future, Taiwan government will continue to improve its business law, promote market openness and facilitate market competition to maintain the momentum for Taiwan's economic growth and reform.

Investment Environment with Competitiveness

Taiwan provides an investment environment with competitiveness. The ratio of government tax revenue to GDP is lower than Japan, South Korea, and most of the developed European and American countries. Beginning from 2018, the tax rate for profit-seeking enterprise income tax has been raised to 20% from 17%. In line with our industrial policy, we have provided proper tax incentives resulting in an effective tax rate of profit-seeking enterprise income tax of approximately 13%~14%. Taiwan has signed with many countries the agreements for avoidance of double taxation. As of 31 December, 2017, Taiwan has signed comprehensive income tax treaties with 32 countries, and 13 treaties on international transportation income tax agreements.

Healthy Economy

The global financial crisis has hit the world severely. Taiwan's healthy economy makes it more worthy of long-term investment than other emerging countries. The banking system is abundant of liquid capital and the country has huge foreign exchange reserves, a current account surplus, and low foreign debt and average debt, which contributes to Taiwan’s outstanding macroeconomic performance as well as the resistibility amid financial crisis. According to the statistics of the International Monetary Fund, Taiwan has more than USD4 trillion of foreign exchange reserves, which is ranked 5th in the world. The ratio of foreign debt to GDP for Taiwan is 31.7%. This indicates that Taiwan has a securer economy. Taiwan has large current account surpluses, which make the country resistible to the impact of capital outflow and help reduce the risk of confidence crisis. During the global economic recession, Taiwan can still work on preparing for the next wave of economic growth. Taiwan's economy is healthier than other emerging countries. With improved cross-strait relations, Taiwan is expected to have new growth momentums after recovery from the recession.

Advantages for Becoming the Asia-Pacific Capital Fund Center

Taiwan's economic environment is stable. It has four major advantages to become the financial center in the Asia-Pacific region.

  • High Internationalized Capital Market: First, as of September 2016, the stock market capitalization to GDP ratio is 159.37 percent, which indicates Taiwan Stock Market is highly sophisticated and is worth for investment. Secondly, Taiwan Stock Market is active and attractive because of TWSE turnover rate of 62.67 and the Taiwan market P/E ratio at 16.51. Last, the foreign holding of Taiwan's listed companies accounted for nearly one third of the total market value, which shows the capital market in Taiwan gradually turns into liberalization and internationalization.
  • Active Stock Exchange Market: TWSE has focused on developing new products to enhance diversification of securities and provide investors with hedging tools. Listed securities on TWSE currently include stocks, entitlement certificates of convertible bonds, convertible bonds, government bonds, beneficiary certificates, call warrants, put warrants, ETFs and Taiwan Depository Receipts (TDRs). Meanwhile, Taiwan's exchange rate is stable, the capital fund costs and interest rates are relatively lower than other Asian countries. Moreover, It takes approximately NT$10 million to list on the Taiwan stock Exchange, which is lower than the costs involved in listing in Hong Kong and Singapore market. This advantage is helpful in attracting foreign investment in the capital market.
  • Healthy Investment Environment: In general, with the exception of funds or capital sourced from mainland China or investments in the industries prohibited due to national security concerns, there are no restrictions on the industries for foreign investments. Applicable acts and regulations may, in a few instances, limit the percentage of equity holdings by foreign nationals in companies in certain industries (such as posts, telecommunications, and shipping) to meet policy needs related to national interests in the economic, social, or cultural spheres. Most developed countries have similar policies, and the practice in Taiwan is in line with FTSE developed-market standards.

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