Ho gave a speech introducing Taiwan’s macro-economic outlook, investment opportunities in capital markets,and the business potential of emerging industries at the forum, sponsored by the Far East Trade Service Inc., Taipei Trade Center Hong Kong, and the Asia-Pacific Taiwanese Chambers of Commerce.

Ho said Taiwan has enjoyed stable economic growth and now ranks sixth in the world on the Profit Opportunity Recommendation released by the Business Environment Risk Intelligence (BERI) in April this year.

According to Ho, Taiwan’s Gross National Product (GNP) per capita of 2006 reached US$16,471, and its economic growth rate of the same year was 4.68 percent. The 2007 rate is also expected to be about 4.6 percent.

The value of Taiwan’s foreign trade is rapidly increasing, Ho said. The total value of its foreign trade was US$426.7 billion last year, 109 times its value in 1971. The total value of foreign trade in the first six months of this year reached US$217.34 billion, up 6.4 percent over the same period last year, Ho said.

Taiwan’s economy is being transformed into a knowledge-based one, relying on technology and the service industry rather than agriculture and heavy industry, Ho said.

The government is making efforts to turn idled farmlands into construction plots, in hopes of revitalizing rural areas into communities with better public infrastructure and facilities in order to sustain economic development.

Moreover, Ho said the output value of four of Taiwan’s promising industries — wireless broadband, digital life, health care and green industries — is expected to exceed NT$1 trillion by 2015 under the government’s promotional policies.

The wireless broadband industry will focus on building a networked information society under the government’s so-called “M-Taiwan” project. With the advantages of information and communications technology (ICT), Taiwan will be able to develop its technology in worldwide inter-operability for microwave access (WiMAX) to enter the era of fourth-generation communications system (4G), which will contribute to the project.

The digital life industry has given priority to developing “smart cars,” “smart spaces,” and “smart robots” with artificial intelligence systems in order to build digital families for people.

The health care industry will focus on elder care, medical equipment, pharmaceuticals, and health food industries, while solar, and other forms other renewable energy will be developed in the green sector, Ho said.

The nation’s policies on the revitalization of rural communities and promotion of these four promising industries have created great business and investment opportunities, Ho said.

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