One of the recent issues of concern to the AmCham Taipei Insurance Committee, as discussed in Suggestion 2 of the 2015 Taiwan White Paper, has been the increase in the business tax for financial institutions that took effect in July 2014, raising the rate from 2% to 5%. For insurance companies, the tax is levied…
Formerly, people’s lives seemed to fit neatly into broad demographic categories: the first age of childhood, the productive years of the second age of working life, and the third age of retirement. But as an increasingly large segment of the population approaches retirement age, the question arises of whether enough resources will be available to…
Taiwan has one of the largest life insurance markets in the world, but does that mean the society is among the best protected? Unfortunately not, as both insurers and government regulators agree. In fact, according to experts, Taiwan faces numerous social challenges that are insufficiently met by the types of insurance currently in demand by…
With smartphone penetration rates exceeding 65%, Internet penetration at 80%, and a quarter of the population using at least three connected devices, Taiwan is among the most connected nations in the world. This connectivity is reflected in Taiwan’s surging e-commerce, which has grown on average at 10-20% annually for the past five years, reaching nearly…
In many respects, Taiwan is very well-positioned for smooth development of its insurance market. Among the positive basic characteristics are a well-educated and prosperous population with per capita national income last year of US$19,315. Calculated by purchasing power parity, per capita GDP comes to US$45,900. Taiwan also has a high gross national savings rate of…
State coffers are benefiting from a rise in tax revenue, but Taiwan’s tax-to-GDP ratio remains among the lowest in the developed world. Revisions to tax policy are bringing increased revenue into Taiwan’s national treasury, giving a boost to public finances as the government grapples with ballooning debt and anemic economic growth. Analysts and the government…
Expeditious reform of the public finance system is necessary to prevent mounting debt from crimping future economic growth. Taiwan’s public finances are increasingly strained by debt, aggravating the island’s fiscal woes as it struggles with flagging exports and weak GDP growth. Last year, the central government’s debt reached NT$5.28 trillion (US$161 billion). At 35.85% of…
Government procurement can play a key role in developing Taiwan’s software market. Taiwan has excelled at the development of information-technology (IT) hardware, in part due to the financial and other assistance provided by the government over the past two decades. But support on the same scale has not been extended to companies on the software…
The institute, the only Taiwan-based international organization, contributes to the global fight against malnutrition and poverty. A short distance from the Southern Taiwan Science Park and its cluster of optoelectronics and green-energy companies, an institute quietly engages in vital work in an entirely different sphere. What is now known as “AVRDC – The World Vegetable…
Proponents see an answer to world hunger; critics fear risk to human health and the environment. Concern over the safety of consuming food with genetically modified organisms (GMO) has increased in Taiwan, as it has in much of the world. Taiwan is a major consumer of soy, annually importing an average of 8 million bushels…
