Taiwan’s investment in ASEAN markets in the first half of this year surpassed the volume bound for China, as local firms continued to shift manufacturing bases away from the world’s second-largest economy at clients’ urging to avoid US-China trade frictions, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
Approved investments in Southeast Asia reached US$2 billion in the first six months of this year, accounting for 18.1 percent and overtaking China as the No. 1 destination at 17.6 percent, the ministry said in a report.
It attributed the changes to a global supply chain realignment and rising Chinese labor costs.
Photo: Reuters
The phenomenon became evident in 2018 when China-bound investment shrank by 50 percent to the lowest level since 2010 and plunged another 50 percent in 2019, the ministry said.
From 2018 to last year, investment destined for China declined 40.3 percent from the period of 2013 to 2017.
At the same time, investment bound for ASEAN markets grew 40.9 percent, the report said.
The bulk of investment in ASEAN was in manufacturing facilities, at 38.2 percent, followed by financial and insurance service providers (23.5 percent), and wholesale and retail operations (22.3 percent), it said.
By contrast, China-bound investment was focused on manufacturing facilities, it added.
Major local banks have set up branches in Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and elsewhere in Southeast Asia to better serve their Taiwanese clients and take advantage of fast-growing economies in the region.
The government has also encouraged investment in ASEAN markets under President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) New Southbound Policy to help local companies diversify investment risks.
For the past decade, tech companies have increased their investment in ASEAN markets, whereas previously it was non-tech firms focused on the region, the ministry said.
Today, electronic component suppliers make up for 27.6 percent, followed by vendors of computers and optical devices at 12.2 percent, textile makers at 8.9 percent and base metal product suppliers at 6.2 percent, it said.
In the previous four years, base metal product suppliers accounted for 46.2 percent of investment in the region, far outweighing electronics companies at 24.2 percent, it said.
India emerged as another big beneficiary of the global supply chain realignment, with outbound investment from Taiwan soaring more than threefold after the signing of a bilateral trade agreement in 2018, the ministry said.
Investment in India this year might challenge the five-year average of US$100 million, it said, as India’s vast population has received increased attention from global technology titans and their suppliers.
TECH BOOST: New TSMC wafer fabs in Arizona are to dramatically improve US advanced chip production, a report by market research firm TrendForce said With Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) pouring large funds into Arizona, the US is expected to see an improvement in its status to become the second-largest maker of advanced semiconductors in 2027, Taipei-based market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said in a report last week. TrendForce estimates the US would account for a 21 percent share in the global advanced integrated circuit (IC) production market by 2027, sharply up from the current 9 percent, as TSMC is investing US$65 billion to build three wafer fabs in Arizona, the report said. TrendForce defined the advanced chipmaking processes as the 7-nanometer process or more
China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) plans to start mass-producing its most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip in the first quarter of next year, even as it struggles to make enough chips due to US restrictions, two people familiar with the matter said. The telecoms conglomerate has sent samples of the Ascend 910C — its newest chip, meant to rival those made by US chipmaker Nvidia Corp — to some technology firms and started taking orders, the sources told Reuters. The 910C is being made by top Chinese contract chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) on its N+2 process, but a lack
Who would not want a social media audience that grows without new content? During the three years she paused production of her short do-it-yourself (DIY) farmer’s lifestyle videos, Chinese vlogger Li Ziqi (李子柒), 34, has seen her YouTube subscribers increase to 20.2 million from about 14 million. While YouTube is banned in China, her fan base there — although not the size of YouTube’s MrBeast, who has 330 million subscribers — is close to 100 million across the country’s social media platforms Douyin (抖音), Sina Weibo (新浪微博) and Xiaohongshu (小紅書). When Li finally released new videos last week — ending what has
OPEN SCIENCE: International collaboration on math and science will persevere even if the incoming Trump administration imposes strict controls, Nvidia’s CEO said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said on Saturday that global cooperation in technology would continue even if the incoming US administration imposes stricter export controls on advanced computing products. US president-elect Donald Trump, in his first term in office, imposed restrictions on the sale of US technology to China citing national security — a policy continued under US President Joe Biden. The curbs forced Nvidia, the world’s leading maker of chips used for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, to change its product lineup in China. The US chipmaking giant last week reported record-high quarterly revenue on the back of strong AI chip