Tag: industry

Taiwan’s Prowess in the ICT Industry  

Min-Hua Chiang examines the growth of Taiwan’s robust ICT industry. China was considered a potentially important competitor to Taiwan’s ICT firms a few years ago. However, China’s effort to reduce its reliance on importing key components was unsuccessful. In July 2021, Tsinghua Unigroup, a state-backed semiconductor manufacturer, filed a bankruptcy request. Chinese chip industry only took 7.6% of total global semiconductor sales. Its equipment and materials for production are still limited to older technologies. The American government has been encouraging manufacturing production at home to reduce imports of key components from overseas. Nevertheless, the high labour cost and lack of qualified workers in the semiconductor industry will make it difficult to reduce its reliance on Taiwan. The greater US-China competition in the high technology industry is only likely to increase the superpowers’ dependence on Taiwan’s semiconductor industry.

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Strategic Focus Areas for Taiwan’s Burgeoning Domestic Space Industry

Written by Jason Wang. While Taiwan’s democratic IP-friendly government, hardware, and engineering talents give the nation a competitive advantage in the global New Space industry, complex challenges still lie ahead. Specifically, how effectively can the Tsai Administration rally a whole-of-government approach to reduce the friction of building a domestic ecosystem that encourages international new space players to stay and grow with Taiwan? Six strategic focus areas will be discussed in the following paragraphs: Infrastructure for new space industry development, Risk-tolerant funding, a.k.a the Taiwan Space Fund, Spectrum and orbital slots, Space situational awareness, Software applications not well as hardware, an education system redesigned to produce multidisciplinary talent and more women.

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Taiwan’s Economy: GDP Growth is a Bright Spot for Now

Written by John F. Copper. The recent economic news emanating from Taiwan is the impressive growth in its gross domestic product (GDP)—one of the basic indicators of economic vitality. This is certainly good to hear. After experiencing negative growth throughout most of 2020, conditions changed in the last quarter of the year. As a result, Taiwan even bested China’s GDP growth. Furthermore, the upward trend accelerated this year, with GDP expansion the highest in two decades. If this growth is sustained, 2021 will end with a welcomed 5 per cent or better rise.

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The Future of Taiwanese industries’ Supply Chain Reallocations Under Covid-19

Written by Chun-Chien Kuo. By adding fire to the existing US-China Trade War, Covid-19 has accelerated the current economic adjustment pace, along with the need for supply chain reallocation in industries. Thus, industries and firms in Taiwan have responded to adjust their production of diverse parts and components. They have also attempted to establish their own sufficient domestic supply chains. New trends in supply chain reallocation have also emerged, such as localised supply chains, shorten supply chains and digitalisation under the Covid-19 threat.

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How to Promote the Long-Term Success of Semiconductor Industry in Taiwan and Other Economies

Written by Bo-Yi Lee. Taiwan’s semiconductor industry has recently attracted attention from foreign governments and media due to the shortage of chips essential for carmakers. Besides, with the growing demand for advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), fifth-generation (5G) communication, electric vehicles, etc., Taiwan’s semiconductor industry’s strategic importance cannot be over-emphasized. For these Taiwanese firms in this critical supply chain, it is necessary to prioritize and strategize attracting, retaining, and developing talents, since this is a capital and a knowledge-intensive industry.

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Semiconductor Industry Strategies in Taiwan

Written by Guo-Huei Chen, Ming-En Hsiao and Li-Ke Chang. The semiconductor industry is strategic to national security and critical to international connections in the high tech and techno-geopolitics era. In regard to tech, along with strategic competitions between America and China, Taiwan is at the frontline for its supply chains and geopolitics.

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Cross-Taiwan Strait Economic Relations in Times of Uncertainty

Written by Tse-Kang Leng. Taiwan is now facing increasing pressure to adjust its cross-strait economic policies. In her second inaugural address on May 20 of this year, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen re-emphasised the importance of Taiwan’s strength in the semiconductor and ICT industries, and she also urged the country to secure a central role in global supply chains. In order to cope with current global uncertainties, more substantial state intervention to consolidate economic security will become the new normal.

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Brexit, Taiwan and the Global Semiconductor Industry

Written by Yu-Ching Kuo and Robyn Klingler-Vidra. In this piece, we discuss how Brexit affects Taiwan in its role as a key player in the critical innovation arena of the global semiconductor industry. To do so, we contextualise Taiwan’s semiconductor industry in the dynamics of the global marketplace and discuss the potential effects of uncertainty on innovation.

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