But capturing the possibilities will require a difficult shift in focus from hardware and assembly to software, plus a change in regulatory mindset. Long before there was Facebook, YouTube, or Instagram, Taiwan had an active social network of its own: the PTT bulletin board system (BBS). National Taiwan University student Ethan Tu founded PTT in…
New York regulators’ fining of Mega Bank last year for lax compliance practices was a wake-up call. In a victory for the nation’s regulators, Taiwan in July was removed from a regional list of countries judged to have insufficient money-laundering controls. Taiwan had spent months revising legislation and pushing its financial institutions to crack down…
Exposure declines in China, though it remains an important market for serving Taiwanese SMEs. Taiwan has long suffered from a saturated domestic banking market, prompting its banks to foray abroad for new business opportunities. Under the administration of former President Ma Ying-jeou, banks took advantage of the cross-Strait detente to open numerous branches in China….
Reversing a long-running brain drain will be an important step on the path to economic revival. James Grigbsy has spent the majority of his professional career in Taiwan. He worked as a consultant here for two decades, including 15 years as an executive with Getchee (originally known as Pacific GeoPro), a location intelligence firm that…
One of Taiwan’s most up-and-coming cities hopes to become a preeminent innovation hub in Asia. Taiwan has bold ambitions for its industrial transformation. One of the central tenets of that bid is the Asia Silicon Valley Development Plan, which policymakers hope will create a hotbed of technological innovation in the northern Taiwan city of Taoyuan….
New smart-city digital technologies involving the Internet of Things are being adopted by the nation’s largest cities and could help spur economic development through industrial transformation. Some of the leading examples so far are the eTag electronic toll collection system, the EasyCard payment platform, and the Wi-Fi system on the Taoyuan Metro. Under planning is…
As more Taiwanese travel internationally, competition is intensifying in the nation’s aviation market. In particular, carriers are vying for a greater share of long-haul flights to North America and Europe as well as Southeast Asia routes. Amidst these market conditions, China Airlines had added Airbus’s new A350-900 to its fleet. The A350-900 is praised for…
Despite declining visitor numbers, hotel companies are pushing on with expansion plans. Takehiro Masutomo and his family enjoyed their Taiwan sojourn. A Tokyo-based freelance writer, Masutomo has covered cross-Strait relations over the years and traveled to Taiwan previously for both business and leisure. He brought his parents to Taipei for a long weekend in March….
Once the focal point of hostilities between China and Taiwan, the Kinmen archipelago has evolved into a fascinating tourist destination. Wandering Cihu Lake’s secluded beach on the largest of the offshore islands of Kinmen, I am about as close to the Chinese mainland as one can be in Taiwan’s territory. I came to the beach…
Behind the two crashes that sank the company were some critical business mistakes. For Taiwan’s erstwhile No. 3 carrier, TransAsia Airways, the end came mercifully. For nearly two years before it declared bankruptcy last November, TransAsia had struggled to fill flights, its load capacity falling to 60%. Even slashing prices to as little as NT$1,500…
