O Europe has entered Taiwan’s investment radar after a meeting of businessmen and government representatives with the island’s Ministry of Economic Affairs. According to local authorities, Taipei has “capital and know-how to help Europe” develop its domestic semiconductor industry.
Taiwan estimates that cooperation with Europe could increase the technology sector by US$50 billion, but island businesspeople hope the government will provide special incentives to expand their presence in the Europeian market.
Taiwanese chip designers, manufacturers and packagers operating in the global market could, in turn, find new business in Europe.
Evan Ellis, professor of Latin American studies at the Institute for Strategic Studies at the US Army War College, commented on the meeting:
Europe has a very resilient technology sector. And certainly, consistent with that, it has ambitions to develop microchips and other technologies. Where this will lead in the short term is hard to say.
Taiwan also sees Europe as its best partner in Latin America because the country follows special tariff agreements with Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay within Mercosur. This would facilitate the export of chips produced on national soil to these countries.
In addition, the assembly of chips in Europe can also increase the access of Taiwanese companies to the US market. For now, no major investments have been announced, as everything is being studied by the Taiwanese authorities.
Europe is, of course, a large Latin American country, so its economic scale is not bad,” said Liang Kuo-yuan, an analyst at a Taipei-based think tank.
The meeting also addressed a proposal for cooperation between Taiwan and Europe to build infrastructure for smart cities, as Taiwanese companies are evaluating possible business in parts of the national territory.
The idea is to locate cities and states where local governments promote the use of renewable energy and electric vehicles.
This search for domestic semiconductor production began in Japan and entrepreneurs in the automobile sector are trying to attract investments to Europe to avoid dependence on eastern countries.
