3,907 Taiwan-funded projects approved in ’05

00-01-01 00:00　source: CE.cn

　　Statistics from China’s Ministry of Commerce indicate that in 2005 the Government approved some 3,907 projects involving investment from Taiwan, the Xinhua News Agency reports.

According to the report, the approved projects have a contractual value of 10.36 billion US dollars, of which 2.15 billion US dollars has been drawn down to date.

Last year indirect cross-straits trade was worth 91.23 billion US dollars, with exports from the Chinese mainland to Taiwan standing at 16.55 billion US dollars and imports from Taiwan to the mainland, 74.68 billion US dollars. The Chinese mainland last year had a trade deficit with Taiwan of 58.13 billion US dollars.

By the end of 2005, the Chinese mainland had approved a total of 68,095 projects involving investment from Taiwan business people. The accumulated contractual value of these projects amounted to 89.70 US dollars, of which 41.76 billion US dollars worth had been employed. The total volume of indirect trade across the straits amounted to 495.81 billion US dollars over the same period.

The Chinese mainland is Taiwan’s largest export market and a leading contributor to its trade surplus, while Taiwan is the Chinese mainland’s second largest market for exports.

In an exclusive interview with a reporter from the Xinhua News Agency, the chief of the Economic Bureau of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, He Shizhong, said that during 2005 the economic and trade relationship across the Taiwan Straits continued to improve.

He also noted that Taiwan business people were concentrating their investment in Southeastern Fujian, the Pearl River Delta, the Yangtze River Delta and the Bohai Bay Rim, but were also showing a trend towards shifting their investment towards the central and western regions of the country.

Many Taiwan-based conglomerates and listed companies have invested in the mainland and moved their production facilities there. In particular, Taiwan’s high-tech enterprises have accelerated the trend of moving production facilities to the mainland in recent years.

At the same time, Taiwan’s financial institutions have also been actively exploring opportunities in the mainland market.

Taiwan business people have shifted their focus over the last two decades from labor-intensive manufacturing in the late 1980s, to the heavy chemical industry in the 1990s, to information technology since 2000 and most recently to the finance and shipping sectors.