Taiwan

Taiwan has a dynamic capitalist economy with gradually decreasing government guidance of investment and foreign trade. In keeping with this trend, some large, state-owned banks and industrial firms have been privatized. Exports, led by electronics and machinery, generate about 70% of Taiwan’s GDP growth, and have provided the primary impetus for economic development. This heavy dependence on exports makes the economy vulnerable to downturns in world demand. In 2009, Taiwan’s GDP fell by 1.9%, due primarily to a 20% year-on-year decline in exports. GDP grew more than 8% in 2010, as exports returned to the level of previous years. Taiwan’s diplomatic isolation, low birth rate, and rapidly aging population are major long-term challenges. Free trade agreements have proliferated in East Asia over the past several years, but so far Taiwan has been excluded from this greater economic integration, largely for reasons of diplomacy. Taiwan’s birth rate of only 1.2 child per woman is among the lowest in the world, raising the prospect of future labor shortages, falling domestic demand, and declining tax revenues. Taiwan’s population is aging quickly, with the number of people over 65 accounting for 10.8% of the island’s total population as of the end of 2009. The island runs a large trade surplus, and its foreign reserves are the world’s fourth largest, behind China, Japan, and Russia. Since President MA Ying-jeou took office in May 2008, cross-Strait economic ties have increased significantly. Since 2005 China has overtaken the US to become Taiwan’s second-largest source of imports after Japan. China is also the island’s number one destination for foreign direct investment. Taipei has focused much of its economic recovery effort on improving cross-Strait economic integration. Three financial memorandums of understanding, covering banking, securities, and insurance, took effect in mid-January 2010, opening the island to greater investments from the Mainland’s financial firms and institutional investors, and providing new opportunities for Taiwan financial firms to operate in China. Taiwan and the mainland in June 2010 signed the landmark Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), an agreement similar to a free-trade agreement deal that will increase cross-Strait economic ties by lowering tariffs on a number of goods. Taiwan’s goverment has said that the ECFA will serve as a stepping stone toward trade pacts with other regional partners and announced the beginning of negotiations on such an agreement with Singapore in August.

$807.2 billion (2010 est.)

$745.4 billion (2009 est.)

$759.8 billion (2008 est.)

$427 billion (2010 est.)

8.3% (2010 est.)

-1.9% (2009 est.)

0.7% (2008 est.)

$35,100 (2010 est.)

$32,400 (2009 est.)

$33,100 (2008 est.)

11.03 million (2010 est.)

5.2% (2010 est.)

5.9% (2009 est.)

1.08% (2008 est.)

21.5% of GDP (2010 est.)

31.4% of GDP (2010 est.)

33% of GDP (2009 est.)

1.3% (2010 est.)

3.5% (2008)

1.25% (February 2009)

2.56% (31 December 2009)

4.06% (31 December 2008 est.)

$331.7 billion (31 December 2010 est)

$317.9 billion (31 December 2009 est)

$952.2 billion (31 December 2010 est.)

$891.2 billion (31 December 2009 est.)

$661.4 billion (31 December 2010 est.)

$630.8 billion (31 December 2009 est.)

$657.3 billion (31 December 2009)

$354.7 billion (31 December 2008)

$654 billion (28 December 2007)

rice, corn, vegetables, fruit, tea; pigs, poultry, beef, milk; fish

electronics, communications and information technology products, petroleum refining, armaments, chemicals, textiles, iron and steel, machinery, cement, food processing, vehicles, consumer products, pharmaceuticals

16% (2010 est.)

238.3 billion kWh (2008)

229.8 billion kWh (2008)

0 kWh (2009 est.)

0 kWh (2009 est.)

276,800 bbl/day (2009 est.)

910,000 bbl/day (2009 est.)

359,800 bbl/day (2009 est.)

931,300 bbl/day (2009 est.)

2.8 million bbl (1 January 2010 est.)

360 million cu m (2008 est.)

12.44 billion cu m (2008 est.)

0 cu m (2008 est.)

12.08 billion cu m (2008 est.)

6.229 billion cu m (1 January 2010 est.)

$39 billion (2010 est.)

$42.92 billion (2009 est.)

$277.6 billion (2010 est.)

$203.4 billion (2009 est.)

electronics, flat panels, machinery; metals; textiles, plastics, chemicals; optical, photographic, measuring, and medical instruments

China 26.6%, Hong Kong 14.4%, US 11.6%, Japan 7.2%, Singapore 4.2% (2009)

$250.2 billion (2010 est.)

$172.8 billion (2009 est.)

electronics, machinery, crude petroleum, precision instruments, organic chemicals, metals

Japan 20.7%, China 14%, US 10.3%, South Korea 6%, Saudi Arabia 4.8% (2009)

$382.8 billion (31 December 2010 est.)

$353 billion (31 December 2009 est.)

$91.41 billion (31 December 2010 est.)

$75.3 billion (31 December 2009 est.)

$65.38 billion (31 December 2010 est.)

$107.2 billion (31 December 2009 est.)

$122.5 billion (31 December 2010 est.)

$145.3 billion (31 December 2009 est.)

New Taiwan dollars (TWD) per US dollar - 31.864 (2010), 33.061 (2009), 31.53 (2008), 32.84 (2007), 32.534 (2006)