The ink on Taiwan's groundbreaking free trade pact with China is still fresh, but the island has already started its biggest-ever blitz to draw investors.
Minister Yiin Chii- ming is in Japan on a week-long trip to promote Taiwan to companies such as Mitsubishi and Sony.
Next week, vice-economic minister Francis Liang will head to the Chinese mainland while his boss Shih Yen-shiang is to visit Indonesia in September.
From October, expect investment road shows to be held in Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and Europe.
The target: NT$300 billion (US$9.6 billion) worth of investments in the initial phase alone.
Officials and scholars interviewed by The Straits Times say the blitz, which involves numerous ministries and agencies under the Executive Yuan, is Taiwan's largest pitch to investors.
"All ministries under the Executive Yuan are involved," said Chang Hsi- hui, the deputy chief of the Council for Economic Planning and Development's (CEPD) international investment promotion division.
"We hope investors will take advantage of the better investment environment in Taiwan, following the signing of Ecfa and recent government measures, such as the lowering of corporate tax."
Ecfa, short for Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, is the partial free trade deal Taiwan and China signed last month. In May, Taiwan cut its corporate tax rate from 20 per cent to 17 per cent - the same as that of Singapore's.
Dr Wu Tsai-yi, president of the Taiwan Research Institute, said if the campaign is successful, it will be the main driver of the island's economic growth for the next 10 years.
"This is the first battle of the government's 'Golden Decade' goal," Dr Wu said, referring to President Ma Ying- jeou's blueprint for Taiwan's development.
"For the past 10 years, Taiwan's economy has been growing at an average of 4 per cent a year, and more than half of that came from exports, not domestic consumption and investment," Dr Wu noted.
"To sustain growth at 4.5 per cent to 5 per cent for the next 10 years, we need to put in even more effort. We need to go out and attract investors to Taiwan," he added.
The Cabinet, known as the Executive Yuan, is pulling out all the stops. It has set up a number of task forces to coordinate among ministries and corporate representatives.
An inter-ministry Global Trade and Investment Services Office, headed by a deputy economics minister, will open for business on the auspicious date of August 8.
On Thursday, the CEPD, the Cabinet's top economic planning agency, announced 10 key sectors vying for investment, with a total target of NT$317 billion of investors' money.
Environment-friendly energy and construction, cloud computing and high- technology clusters lead the list of mainly emerging industries.
But not everyone is enthusiastic about the strategy.
Professor Wu Hui-lin, who studies Taiwan's economy at Chung-hua Institution for Economic Research, said instead of launching such a promotional blitz, the government should put its energies into improving the climate for investors.
"Just focus on making Taiwan safe and comfortable, create a good transport network, and don't keep changing policies. Then the investors will come," he told The Straits Times.
