Taiwan’s economic growth despite the pandemic|Chang Shao-quan
Taiwan’s Executive Yuan recently released Taiwan’s economic data of 2020: the island’s economy grew at a rate of 3.11 percent for the whole year, and the GDP increased by 5.09 percent in the fourth quarter. The expansion is partly attributable to the fact that Taiwan has managed to keep the Covid-19 pandemic under control. In addition, export of semiconductor technology products, the lifeblood of Taiwan’s economy, continues to go strong. In terms of chip production, Taiwan is a leader in the world, and that indirectly promotes growth of related industries and Taiwan’s economy as a whole.
Global shortage of chips has highlighted the importance of Taiwan’s technology industry. Today, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), Taiwan’s semiconductor giant, is working around the clock to manufacture chips. It has also accelerated plans to build factories at home and abroad, but still it cannot meet the demand for its chips from different sectors and from around the world.
Last year, Taiwan’s GDP grew 2.98 percent, higher than China’s 2.3 percent, marking the first time in 30 years that its GDP outpaced China’s. That mainly had to do with the robust global demand for semiconductor products (i.e. chips). Meanwhile, the fact that Taiwan’s pandemic has come under control enables high-tech factories to continue to run at full steam. TSMC has chosen Phoenix in the US to be the place to establish a factory partly because of the Sino-US trade war. With the growing pace of decoupling between China and the US, TSMC’s move to set up a new factory in the US, which is home to some of TSMC’s biggest clients, carries a positive commercial significance.
In late January 2021, the economy minister of Germany made the rare move to write to his Taiwanese counterpart to see whether TSMC can boost supply of its semiconductor chips for Germany’s automotive sector, which has been dealt a heavy blow by the pandemic. The move has aroused much discussion.
The Taiwanese government predicts that Taiwan’s economy will expand by 3.83 percent. That would be a new high since 2015. Some analysts believe that Taiwan’s semiconductor industry, which enjoys a leading position in the world, is likely to help Taiwan maintain steady growth at a time when the global supply chain is being restructured and amid the pandemic.
Hong Kong people who have moved to Taiwan are also among the beneficiaries of the island’s economic growth. Many Hong Kong friends I know are employees, investors or entrepreneurs in the technology, financial or catering sectors. So one can say Hongkongers have benefited a lot from Taiwan’s growth that is driven by the Taiwanese government’s effectiveness in curbing the pandemic.
(Chang Shao-quan, Alumni Association of the Department of Land Economics, National Chengchi University)
Click
here for Chinese version
We invite you to join the conversation by submitting columns to our opinion section:
[email protected]Apple Daily reserves the right to refuse, abridge, alter or edit guest opinion columns for accuracy, length, clarity, and style, and the right to withdraw and withhold columns based on the discretion of our editorial page editors.
The opinions of the writers do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editorial board.
---------------------------------
Apple Daily’s all-new English Edition is now available on the mobile app:
bit.ly/2yMMfQETo download the latest version,
Or search Appledaily in App Store or Google Play