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Taiwanese businesses invested around US$453 million into Viet Nam in 2004 - a record among East Asian investors in the wake of the regional financial crisis in 1997 - which was considered the start of a new wave of Taiwanese investment in the country.
The remark was made by a report carried by the ChinaTimes newspaper of Taiwan, which also revealed that Taiwanese businesses have poured more than US$8 billion into Viet Nam over the past 16 years, becoming the country’ second biggest investor.
Taiwanese investors have earned huge profits and generated jobs for many local people, the paper said, citing Vedan, a seasoning powder producer, as an example. The company earned a profit of 3.2 billion Taiwanese yuan (roughly US$100 million) in 2004 and has generated stable incomes for 400,000 local cassava growers in Viet Nam's southern Dong Nai province.
The VMEP motorbike company is also among the most successful Taiwanese investors in Viet Nam. It made a profit of over US$81 million and fetched its holding company 1.4 billion Taiwanese yuan (equivalent to US$43 million) last year.
The article quoted sources from the Vietnamese Government as saying that the country needs around US$120 billion to carry out its national projects in key areas, including cement, steel and electricity, for the 2006-10 period.
The newspaper, therefore, urged Taiwanese investors to seize these opportunities to benefit from the over 80-million-people market of Viet Nam.
The article also pointed out that Viet Nam will also serve as a bridge for Taiwanese businesses to enter the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) market with a population of 500 million once the country fully joins the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) in the near future.
VNECONOMY - (17/11/2005)
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