High transaction costs are affecting foreign investors’ interest in Taiwanese real estate, while Taiwan’s institutional investors are looking abroad. As compared with some major Asian markets, Taiwan’s real estate market has been dominated by domestic investors. While freehold ownership is attractive to foreign investors, the low yield levels and a dearth of investment-grade properties are…
Low investment and lax regulation threaten the long-term survival of the domestic television industry. In January, the celebrated Taiwanese talk show Here Comes Kangxi went off the air after 12 seasons. Driven by the witty banter between hosts Dee Hsu (“Little S”) and Kevin Tsai, the program was one of the most popular talk shows…
Three operators with majority private-equity control are seeking approvals for changes in ownership. A decade or so ago, international private-equity (PE) firms looked on Taiwan’s major cable television enterprises as an excellent fit for their investment objectives. They saw opportunities to significantly improve the performance of companies in the cable sector to enable an eventual…
The National Communications Commission (NCC) surprised industry stakeholders in the fall of 2015 when, after years of study and preparation, it abruptly released the proposed text of a series of five new laws intended to promote digital convergence. The five draft acts cover electronic communication, telecom infrastructure and resources, cable systems, telecom services, and terrestrial…
After arriving late to the 4G game, Taiwan is determined to capitalize early on the next generation of mobile communication technology. Taiwan has ambitious plans for 5G, a new mobile communication technology with faster speeds, greater capacity, and lower latency (transmission delays) than current network systems. Telecom industry watchers expect the official 5G standard to…
A total of 80 English Teaching Assistants will serve in schools in six locations around Taiwan this year. This month 80 young college graduates from American universities arrive in Taiwan to take up positions for the coming academic year as English Teaching Assistants (ETAs) in public schools. The initiative, sponsored by the Fulbright Program, began…
Schools may need to merge, join an alliance, or shift to a different line of business. For the past three decades, government policy and a cultural stress on the importance of education have driven a boom in the number of universities in Taiwan, even as fertility rates have decreased. Despite warnings for years that a…
Innovative approaches to learning are creating new business opportunities. When they were first introduced, Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs), instructional materials offered by universities over the Internet for free or for a [usually] low price, were simply low-tech and unidirectional videos of professors giving lectures. Today, with the help of MOOC startups such as U.S….
Increasing numbers of Taiwanese students are going abroad for higher education, but they are no longer necessarily headed for U.S. universities, as was once usually the case. Over the past five years, according to Ministry of Education (MOE) data, the number of Taiwanese studying abroad has increased by about 9.3% to reach 54,106. Although the…
The boom of the last eight years is coming to an end as Chinese tourists decline and hotel oversupply grows more severe. Former President Ma Ying-jeou sought closer relations with China as a way to expand Taiwan’s economy. While the results of the various initiatives undertaken by the Ma administration remain open to debate, in…
