Thirty-nine state enterprises have been converted into private companies since 1989. The next stage will be the most difficult. Over the past three decades, a total of 39 state-owned enterprises in Taiwan have been transformed into private corporations through the sale of shares in an effort to promote efficiency and reduce the direct involvement of…
The Tsai administration is making an effort to pursue “transitional justice.” Will it be healing or divisive? February 28, 1980 has gone down in Taiwan’s history as the date of one of the nation’s most gruesome unsolved murders. An intruder entered the ground-floor apartment of opposition politician Lin Yi-hsiung and fatally stabbed his mother and…
For a variety of reasons, Singapore and Hong Kong can manage just fine with significantly lower tax rates. Over the years, the business community has made the case that Taiwan’s steep personal income-tax rates discourage the recruitment and retention of outstanding skilled professionals, both foreign and local. Often these individuals opt to live and work…
Opinion is divided as to whether the designation is positive or detrimental for companies operating in the Taiwan market. For many multinational corporations and other organizations, the treatment of Taiwan together with China and Hong Kong as the combined sub-region of “Greater China” has become common practice as a way of managing their activities within…
The nexus between the two locations is playing an important part in Taiwan’s efforts to cultivate startups. At a demo day in San Francisco organized by Taiwan Accelerator and Startups Greater Asia last October, nine Taiwanese entrepreneurs took the stage at the Google Developers Launchpad Space and for the first time pitched their fledgling startups…
As an investment destination, the United States is attracting greater interest from Taiwan’s top corporations – but it’s struggling to attract smaller players. Terry Gou knows an opportunity when he sees one. The Foxconn chief’s fine-tuned business and political instincts seized the chance provided by the new Trump administration’s push to revive the American manufacturing…
More and more Taiwanese companies are investing there, despite often challenging business conditions. As the China market matures, bringing higher production costs, many Taiwanese companies are looking for the next big site for their offshore operations. India, which the Taiwan government has included within the scope of its New Southbound policy, is among the…
Criminal cases are moving through the courts, but companies see the need for still more education of judges and prosecutors. China is pushing rapidly to meet ambitious targets for developing its high-tech industries in its quest to move its economy up the global value chain and achieve greater self-sufficiency. As it does so, though, leading…
Where business has slowed, the main reason appears to be economic factors. Ever since Beijing angrily terminated official communications with Taiwan’s then newly installed Tsai Ing-wen government in June last year, political relations with China have plunged to their coolest point in nearly a decade. But the cross-Strait political chill over Taiwan’s unwillingness to accept a…
The government is seeking to strengthen trade, investment, tourism, education, and cultural relations with South and Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia may be close to Taiwan geographically, but Taiwanese traditionally tended to see its people as little more than a source of cheap labor. Even in academia, says Edwin Yang, an instructor in the College of…
