Invest in Taiwan

 

TAIWAN INVESTMENT ENVIRONMENT

1. Abundant Capital Funds
The foreign exchange reserves of the Republic of China stood at US$569.54 billion as of the end of February 2024. Taiwan further cemented its status as the fourth-largest forex reserve owner in the world, trailing only China, Japan  and Switzerland. Taiwan’s banking sector is healthy, tightly regulated, and competitive, with 39 domestic banks (with 3,554 branch offices) and 31 foreign banks (Taipei branches). Furthermore, compared to the neighboring countries, Taiwan's securities and stock exchange market is mature and active.

2. Low Taxation Investment Environment

Taiwan provides an investment environment of low taxation. In 2023 the corporate income tax rate is 20%, the same as in Vietnam and Thailand. Taiwan's Investment Commission approved a 15-year-high US$13.3 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2022.

3. Complete Infrastructure, Convenient Transportation Network

Taiwan has 37 airports, including Taipei, Taoyuan and Kaoshiung international airports. Surrounded by the sea, Taiwan has many harbors, including 7 international harbors. The domestic transportation network is complete: there are high speed railway, throughout-the-island railways, ten national high ways, and Taipei and Kaoshiung MRT networks.

Taiwan’s advanced fixed broadband market is served by a variety of technology platforms including DSL, fibre, Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC), leased lines and wireless. Fibre is the most popular platform. Internet penetration is 90% and internet users are 21.45 million. Taiwan ranked 9th out of 64 major economies in the latest World Digital Competitiveness Ranking issued by International Institute for Management Development (2023).

 

4. Superior Innovation Capability

Taiwan is an innovation oriented economy and emerged as the sixth most competitive economy in the 2023 World Competitiveness Yearbook, released by the Institute for Management Development (IMD). Taiwan improved its ranking in the idex for five consecutive years.

Taiwan has a 98.5% literacy rate, the fourth highest standardized math test scores in the world (according to the Organization for Economic Development) and over 25% of all university degrees are in engineering. Taiwan is the third biggest exporter of integrated circuit (2022) in the world, and Taiwanese companies have for years excelled at mobile phone, computer hardware, and electronics engineering. As a result, many leading international corporations including Intel, HP, Dell, Sony, Microsoft, IBM, Linde and Ericsson have established their R&D centers in Taiwan over the years. This proves Taiwan to be an ideal location for multinational corporations to establish their R&D bases for innovative R&D activities.

Pursuing new economic growth momentum through innovation and structural reform measures has been a major direction for major nations in recent years; Taiwan is no exception. According to the World Economic Forum’s assessment, Taiwan has now entered the stage of innovation-driven economic growth.

Across the entire Asia-Pacific (APAC) region – a part of the world once notoriously dependent upon fossil fuels – interest and investment in renewable energy has skyrocketed over the last few years. In Taiwan, the government is making moves to transition to a cleaner, greener future while meeting mounting energy demands. Taiwan plans to promote technology R&D and innovation in key areas, guide the green transition of industry and drive a new wave of economic growth.

 

5. Comprehensive Intellectual Property (IP) Protection

Taiwan attaches great importance to the protection of IP. Taiwanese government has assigned an IP Protection Police Squad in charge of the law enforcement. An IP court has also started functioning since July, 2008. With these judicial efforts, IP trials were carried out more professionally in Taiwan.

 
Taiwan at a glance

	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023
Population	23,555,522	23,580,080	23,596,027	23,582,179	23,468,275	23,319,977	23,342,541
Industrial production, annual change	3.76%	3.37%	0.96%	8.76%	14.73%	-1.82%	-12.30%
Labour force	11,795,000	11,916,000	11,970,000	11,970,000	11,919,000	11,853,000	11,943,000
Unemployment rate		3.66%	3.67%	3.75%	3.95%	3.67%	3.48%
Patent applied	73,791	73,421	74,651	72,238	72,613	72,059	72,607
Patent granted	71,877	62,193	57,886	58,719	59,476	58,014	59,698
Economic growth rate	3.3%	2.8%	3.1%	3.4%	6.6%	2.6%	1.3%
Nominal GDP (US$ million)	590,780	609,251	611,336	673,252	773,135	760,813	755,121
GDP per capita (US$)	25,080	25,838	25,908	28,549	32,944	32,625	32,319

Source: Moea, Cbc, Dgbas
 

 

What Taiwan has Achieved
 

1.  Strong Economic Performance

According to the World Trade Organization, Taiwan's exports and imports proportion in the world for 2022 were 1.9% and 1.7% respectively， both ranking 17th. It was also one of the largest holders of foreign exchange reserves as of December 2022. Taiwan’s gross domestic product per capita reached US$32,625 in 2022. In terms of nominal GDP, Taiwan ranks close to Switzerland and Poland, while its GDP per capita expressed as purchasing power parity is similar to that of Sweden and Netherlands.

In 2023 the amount of total trade reached USD783.9 billion (-13.6%).

Under the New Southbound Policy, Taiwan is deepening ties across the board with the 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations member states, six South Asian countries, Australia and New Zealand.

In 2023 Taiwan exports for the year totaled US$432.44 billion, down 9.8% from a year earlier. Imports totaled US$351.47 billion, down 17.9% from the previous year, according to the latest figures. That yielded a trade surplus of US$80.97 billion (growth rate 57.78%).

Taiwan is home to the world’s leading semiconductor industry, feeding an insatiable market for the most advanced chips for automobiles, 5G, and smart devices.

2.  Supply center for High-Technology Products

With strong high–tech products manufacturing capabilities, Taiwan companies have been the important partners of global brand names, such as Nike, Apple, HP, etc. . In addition, many Taiwan high-tech products are well known in the world, including LCD, Navigator, Motherboard/PC, DRAM, and Golf head etc. Some of the best global brands are in fact from Taiwan: Trend Micro (趨勢科技), Asus (華碩), Want Want (旺旺), Advantech (研華), Giant Bicycles (巨大), Acer (宏碁), MediaTek (聯發科), Merida Bikes (美利達), Delta Electronics (台達電), Garmin (Gps navigator).

 

Opportunities for Italian Business

Excellent venue for investment.

According to the statistics, 2,310 foreign direct investment (FDI) projects with a total amount of US$11,254,769,000 were approved from January to December 2023. This indicates a decrease of 9.98% in the number of cases, and a decrease of 15.40% in FDI amount compared to the same period of 2022.
The investment environment in Taiwan has received significant international recognition. It ranked 4th in the world in the Index of Economic Freedom (Heritage Foundation, 2023) and ranked 14th globally and 5th in Asia in the Investment Environment Risk Assessment Report (Business Environment Risk Intelligence -BERI, 2022).

Taiwan is also putting lot of resources to develop industrial innovation and and promote smart machinery, IoT (the Asia Silicon Valley Plan), biotechnology and medicine, green energy technology, national defense and circular economy, as a priority. Just like in italy, in Taiwan more than 90% of active businesses are small and medium-sized and the government is committed to supporting SMEs.

In recent years, many Italian companies cooperated with Taiwan factories for their production or opened their business unit in Taiwan.  According to the Bank of Italy (FDI 2023), in 2022 Taiwan invested €36 million in Italy (€280 million in 2021). Italian investments on the island amounted to €122 million (€170 million in 2021).

 

Close Economic Relationship between China and Taiwan

Since May 2008, the economic relations between China and Taiwan are getting very close.  For instance, there are many harbors for direct navigation, including Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Ningbo and Qingdao, five of top ten busiest ports in the world. And Taiwan Strait is one of the world’s busiest sea routes with about 20% of the global trade passing through the South China Sea. Meanwhile, there are increasing direct flights between Taiwan and China every week, after they had been reduced because of the pandemic.  Furthermore, with the signing of ECFA (a kind of FTA) between China and Taiwan in 2010, Taiwan can enjoy immediately zero or lower-duty exportation of goods and better market access on service sectors in China. With regard to inward investment from Mainland China, 30 cases (-34.78%) were approved with an amount of US$29,691,000 (-23.34%) from January to December 2023. From July 2009 to December 2023, 1,586 cases were approved with a total investment amount added up to US$2,595,946,000.

Taiwan has irreplaceable links with China. Taiwanese speak the same language, share similar cultures with Chinese. If Italian businessmen could cooperate with Taiwanese partners to take Taiwan’s ECFA niches on tariff elimination/reduction and greater market entry on service sectors to explore China’s market, we believe it would be a win-win situation for both of our businesses.

 

 

REGULATION FOR FOREIGN INVESTORS

Reciprocity.

At present time there is no official reciprocity agreement between Taiwan and Italy. Both countries recognize the principle that states that favours, benefits, or penalties that are granted by one state to the citizens or legal entities of another, should be returned in kind.

Reciprocity has been confirmed in matters of  holding shares of a company, acquiring the membership of a corporate executive board,  establishing a branch office, a proprietary business or a partnership (from Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs).

 

From Taiwan Investment Commission, MOEA:

1. Statute For Investment By Foreign Nationals, download

1. Negative List for Investment by Overseas Chinese and Foreign Nationals (revised on June, 2013), download

Double Taxation Agreement.

The agreement to avoid double taxation between Italy and Taiwan took effect on Jan. 1 2016. Italy became the 14th country in Europe to complete a double taxation avoidance agreement with Taiwan.

Due to the increase in bilateral trade between Taiwan and Italy in recent years, small and medium-sized businesses on both sides are eager to see the passage of legislation on the avoidance of double taxation. The legislation is expected to inject new impetus into Taiwan-Italy economic relations.
The Decree, which follows the patterns accepted internationally by the OECD, aims to eliminate the phenomenon of double taxation and to ensure more effective enforcement of tax evasion. The rules apply to individuals and businesses residing in Italian and Taiwan territories.
DTA text, English - 我國所得稅協定一覽表-財政部全球資訊網 (mof.gov.tw)
 

 

PUBLIC PROCURMENT
 

Since 2009 Taiwan joined WTO GPA (government procurement agreement). Public procurement in Taiwan is open to foreign companies.

http://web.pcc.gov.tw
 

 

 

LINKS
 

Department of Investment Service. Financial assistance and incentive, https://investtaiwan.nat.gov.tw/homePage 
Ministry of Finance, Taxation, www.dot.gov.tw/en/  
Laws and Regulations Database, http://law.moj.gov.tw/eng/

Taiwan at a glance

Ufficio di Rappresentanza di Taipei - Viale Liegi n.17, 00198 Roma | Tel. 06-98262800 - P. Iva 97076980586