Taiwan’s three Science-based Industrial Parks – the Hsinchu Science Park in northern Taiwan, Central Taiwan Science Park centered in Taichung, and Southern Taiwan Science Park centered in Tainan – have provided a nurturing base of operations for the country’s high-tech industries. The advantages of locating within a science park include: One-stop Service. Companies need to…
Taiwan’s producers must move up the value chain as Chinese competitors undercut them on price in the mass market. The optoelectronics sector, a fixture in Taiwan’s science parks, has faced intensifying competition from China in recent years. Like the Taiwanese before them, the Chinese have focused on making products of acceptable quality at a low…
Since the first park opened in Hsinchu in 1980, the emphasis has been on accommodating manufacturers of technology hardware products. That focus is expected to start changing, as Taiwan’s industrial upgrading puts more stress on software, the internet of things, artificial intelligence, and robotics. Over the decades, much of Taiwan’s success as a global manufacturing…
Part of President Tsai Ing-wen’s vision for the New Southbound Policy was for Taiwan to host an annual conference of thought leaders from the target countries to provide guidance regarding regional concerns and how the New Southbound Policy could best address them. Organizing the event – to be held each year on October 11 and…
Back in the 1950s and 1960s, when Taiwan needed support in the international community to hold onto its seat in the United Nations, one of its most effective means of winning friends abroad was through agriculture. Numerous teams of agricultural technicians were dispatched to developing countries, especially in Africa, to teach farmers techniques for increasing…
Western medicine was introduced to Taiwan a century and a half ago by foreign missionaries such as George Leslie Mackay, and American doctors in the 1970s and 1980s helped Taiwan develop a vaccine to overcome the scourge of hepatitis B. Now that Taiwan has built its own strong foundation in healthcare and public health, it…
In the first two-plus years of the New Southbound Policy, the number of students from the target countries enrolled in Taiwan’s colleges and universities increased by over one-third to reach 41,000. At the same time, more than 7,000 young Taiwanese per year head for the New Southbound countries either to take formal courses of study…
In addition to the New Southbound Policy, one of the central initiatives of the Tsai Ing-wen administration has been the “5+2 Innovative Industry” program focusing on cutting edge industrial sectors. The goal of forging links between those two policies was assigned to the Ministry of Economic Affairs as one of the five flagship projects under…
The New Southbound Policy, launched in 2016 to enhance Taiwan’s contacts with countries in the surrounding region, has recently taken on added significance. The deterioration in U.S.-China economic relations has placed the spotlight on Southeast Asia and India as prime areas for future growth in trade and investment. Taiwan’s efforts to enhance relations with those…
Taipei has its attractions as a site for international events, but it needs a fresh mindset to win business in the ultra-competitive Asia market. Arriving at Taoyuan Airport, travelers normally pass through immigration, customs, and the baggage claim smoothly. But upon entering the arrivals area of Taipei’s primary international airport, the experience gets bumpier for…
