Chinese Taipei

Trade

Chinese Taipeis merchandise exports were valued at US$ 317.4 billion (fob) in 2017, while imports were valued at US$ 259.5 billion (cif). In 2016, exports were comprised mainly of manufactures (91.2 percent). Fuels and mining products (5.7 percent), agricultural products (2.3 percent), and others (0.8 percent) contributed very small amounts. Imports, on the other hand, were also comprised largely of manufactures (72.5 percent), with minimal contributions from fuels and mining products (19.3 percent), agricultural products (6.2 percent), and others (2.0 percent).

Most of the exports in 2016 went to China (26.3 percent), Hong Kong (13.7 percent), USA (12.0 percent), EU (28) (8.8 percent), and Japan (7 percent). The rest of the world shared the 32.2 percent. Meanwhile, China (19.1 percent) was also the largest contributor of imports, followed by Japan (17.6 percent), USA (12.5 percent), EU (28) (10.6 percent), Republic of Korea (6.3 percent), and the rest (34.0 percent).

Commercial services exports were valued at US$ 44.7 billion in 2017, while commercial services imports were value higher at US$ 52.8 billion. Most of the services exported were travel (27.6 percent), transport (22.2 percent), goods-related services (8.7 percent), and other commercials services (41.5 percent). Travel (34.0 percent), transport (21.3 percent), goods-related services (8.3 percent), and others (36.4 percent) also made up the commercial services imports, in almost the same proportions.

Investment

Chinese Taipei had benefited from regional economic dynamism and attracted foreign investments, but had also been affected by the economic crisis and the slowing down of China. In 2017, FDI inflow had largely decline from US$ 9.2 billion in the previous year to US$ 3.3 billion. The countrys FDI had been showing very unstable movements, considering that the FDI inflow was also very low at US$ 2.4 billion in 2015. The FDI stock, however, seemed relatively stable; FDI stock in 2016 was US$ 66.7 billion, increased to US$ 83.6 billion in 2016, and further increased slightly to US$ 86.2 billion the next year.

Most of the investments came from the Netherlands (25.2 percent), British Virgin Islands (22.8 percent), UK (15.0 percent), Japan (8.5 percent), Samoa (5.1 percent), and Hong Kong (3.7 percent).

The most invested sector was electronic components (28.4 percent), information and communication (16.1 percent), finance and insurance (12.5 percent), wholesale and retail trade (11.7 percent), real estate (9.5 percent), and professional, scientific and technical services (5.9 percent).

References:

https://www.wto.org/english/res_e/statis_e/daily_update_e/trade_profiles/TW_e.pdf (Accessed on 31 October 2018)

https://en.portal.santandertrade.com/establish-overseas/taiwan/foreign-investment (Accessed on 31 October 2018)