Taiwan eyes foreign investment in service sector

 2012/02/07 Taipei, Feb. 7 (CNA) The government plans to address the service sector when attracting foreign investment to Taiwan this year in an attempt to take advantage of the country's "soft power," economic officials said Tuesday. Foreign investment in Taiwan totaled US$9.53 billion in 2011, exceeding the Ministry of Economic Affairs' original target of US$9 billion and creating 23,938 jobs, according to the ministry. The ministry raised its monetary target for this year to US$9.2 billion and will continue to hold business roadshows in the United States, Europe and Japan, as well as organizing business delegations to those regions to encourage investment, the ministry said. "The service sector is what we will address this year because it needs improved competitiveness if it is to step upon the global stage," C.Y. Ling, director-general of the ministry's Department of Investment Services, told a media briefing. "Taiwan's advantages still lie in its talented workers and its high levels of technological development," Ling said. The government hopes to attract some of the world's top 500 service sector companies to do business with local firms, including those in the marketing, logistics and cultural and creative fields, Ling said. Among the 156 foreign investment cases in 2011, Japan was the biggest source country with 43 cases, followed by 27 cases from the U.S. and 14 cases from the British Virgin Islands. In terms of investment sectors, financial and insurance ranked in first place with US$1.42 billion. Computers, electronics and optics manufacturing came in second with US$1.29 billion and electronics component manufacturing was third with US$552 million. Ling said the government has also raised its target for investment by homecoming Taiwanese companies to NT$50 billion in 2012, an increase of 11 percent from last year's target of NT$45 billion. The actual investments by homecoming Taiwanese firms hit a record high of NT$46.9 billion in 2011, marking the fourth consecutive year of annual growth. Based on a ministry survey in 2011 that collected 1,000 valid samples from Taiwanese companies that have invested in China, 32.7 percent of respondents were interested in investing in green energy, innovation patents, cloud computing and biotech in Taiwan. Some 30.9 percent of the respondents said the signing of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) between Taiwan and China has made them more willing to invest in Taiwan and said the trade pact is helpful to the expansion of markets and corporate positioning across the Taiwan Strait.