I get the impression there’s a huge brain drain happening to Taiwan. Anyway with any skills has ambitions to move and work abroad, where wages are higher and working conditions are actually based in the 1st world.
Not sure if it’s only my personal experience or a general trend though.
I dunno…I still “maybe” have hopes for this thing
dois.moea.gov.tw/content/201 … opolis.pdf
although I’m always weary of “free trade”. And the “international medical services” (hoards of Chinese health check tourists), “biotechnology”, “green” this and that, is all very vague. You can just see the guy was told to sprinkle a few words in the presentation
It will involve lots of land development and speculation, some factories, hotels and a whole load of apartments. its really an urbanization project on a large scale. It was going to get develooment anyway around the MRT stations. I’m not sure what is novel or how it will create new industries. As for the logistics hub idea, It could be a good location, but the mainland already has many sea ports that can function in the same manner. If they could get Fedex or DHL to setup a hub there it might help alright, but those guys have very large hubs in the mainland already, maybe too late in that regard. The free trade zone is designed to legally avoid environmental review restrictions and foreign labour restrictions and avoid taxes. Is that a good thing? Won’t factories just set up there and not pay tax that they would have paid in other parts of Taiwan and employ foreign labour instead of locals?
The back part of Taiyuan airport is absolutely hideous, so if it involved knocking that done that would be good, but not sure if that is being incorporated in the redevelopment or not. taiwan is just busy concreting over its remaining farmland areas for $$$.
No comment.
IoT already being used all over the place - retail, transportation, etc. You didn’t think they’d only network your smartphone and laptop did you? Big data, cloud computing, shrinking systems, increasing bandwidth, cheap manufacturing…all been adding up to the next wave. About time too! Far more interesting than smartwatches!
I expect Taiwanese comapmies to continue to make all the bits and bobs that go into IoT, so the electronics industry in terms
Of OEM or ODM should still do fairly well over next few years.
However the big money would be in software providers and IT engineers
Who could run the databases and networks and license the software, analyzing the data and selling it to retulilers and vendors, somehow I think this won’t be from Taiwan, so I can’t see any step change in terms of a new industry or big time salaries. That stuff will mostly be made in China too as it is now.
The big changes might
Come from the mainland, since the mainland has some very large scale IT companies with global ambitions,
Probably those guys will end up investing in local companies,
Not sure if they will have any large scale
Investments here though and could they bring new blood and vision to this island…maybe in some circumstances. Anyway I expect mainland companies to have the largest influence here soon beyond the domestic players.
At the end of the day, it rests on the 老百姓 - the ordinary people - to reassess what they want out of life, and demand that and fight for it. Taiwanese people can say, look, we’ve done pretty damn well over the decades. We’ve built some global electronics and semiconductor brands, we’ve achieved this and that. Now it’s time to clean up the act at home and improve quality of life - air, water, environment, the day in the life of a school kid, salaries, working conditions, life-work balance, and so on.
The greedy politicians and laobans will always sing the “but we face severe competition from south korea, china and japan” tune, nu li nu li, jia you jia you, all that BS. Fact is, many companies have had record profits over the years, and Taiwan, by the nature of the industries they’ve grown with as a country, will continue to face tough times. Taiwanese can just adapt and live and innovate here and there and wherever they can
technews.co/2015/06/13/china-poa … -projects/
here’s a relevant news story…I’m not sure if they can say China is poaching but I guess that the investment is backed by Chinese companies or funders. The way Taiwanese tend to
Move en masse like that makes a lot of foreign companies wary.
I think Taiwan is failing. It is failing its youngest and brightest. Whenever their top students are told they are greedy for wanting more than 20k NTD and that they should be grateful for being treated as disposable chopsticks at work, whenever they have to quit to take a break or when told to choose between having a family or a job, Taiwan is failing them. When the birth rate is the lowest in the world because people are losing hope in the future, that is considered a failure. It is truly an organized society, very safe, very nice, with lots of potential. But the fire is extinguished in the young ones in the educational grinder and totally thwarted when there are no funds for their dreams.
[quote=“headhonchoII”]http://technews.co/2015/06/13/china-poaches-top-talent-from-mozilla-taiwan-for-iot-projects/
here’s a relevant news story…I’m not sure if they can say China is poaching but I guess that the investment is backed by Chinese companies or funders. The way Taiwanese tend to
Move en masse like that makes a lot of foreign companies wary.[/quote]
I have to say most of the Taiwanese I know who are young, educated and talented people are moving to work in the Mainland or in HK one after the other… quite sad really.
A lot of good stuff here. I think that there are two conflicting views, as in the world in general. One one side there’s money, on the other it’s the environment. “Taiwan needs higher salaries” “Taiwan needs better air”. But money, as pointed out in another post most often comes from paving farmland or ignoring environmental assessment. If you exclude that part which would for example explain China’s “development”, what other countries are actually moving the needle in any way? Aren’t all countries “doomed” as it stands right now? Fumbling to find a way. Either we stay with the current model or we change. But that’s not an easy thing to do. Who will go first? So we will just go on with our lives. Hopefully somewhere along the line we’ll find some ways to live that is sustainable. With Taiwan being insular I actually think that there is a higher possibility of that happening here.
There’s no law in the universe saying money and environment have to be conflicting. Back in business school, I remember reading a quite large amount of research papers demonstrating that sustainable businesses and very profitable businesses were indeed compatible. For instance, I remember reading about how Canada turned green building re-engineering into a multi-billion dollar industry wink wink Taiwan.
Taiwan has all the pieces sitting here waiting to turn this place around. They’ve got the money, the tech , the dense populations that make it easy to to roll out, stable institutions.
For instance, solar panels…easily could carpet the south with MIT solar panels. why the hell not?
cleaner transport is starting , just slow to move away from gasoline scooters.
to be honest I was looking into moving back to a capital of a European country, compared to where I live now, capital of taiwan , it’s about twice as expensive with higher taxes thrown in and barely functioning public transport system. it’s actually a shambles. Tax on income over 40000 euro is 50% . That’s crazy. t
Rent is about two to three times higher than Taiwan, when they list the apartments they don’t even show size of apartment just how many bedrooms, most of the apartments are SMALLER than Taiwans apartments. Utilities about twice. VAT is 21% on almost everything t, it costs 1500 ntd to see a doctor. Car insurance and maintenance about 5x Taiwan. Fuel 2x Taiwan price.
Theres no subway line just a few rail lines and light rail, there’s no airport link. The roads are jammed with cars. The trains are jammed too. The light rails are jammed. The average commute must be about an hour one way with private vehicle, worse with public transport which is basically buses. They have been talking about building a subway line since the 1970s. Maybe one will get started on in the next 5-10 years. There might be one line built by 2025. Maybe. The bus is faster than the intercity trains, and nobody can afford to travel by train except pensioners who get free travel passes. You cant leave anything outside or it gets nicked and there is a serious drug problem on the streets. You have beggars hanging out at ATMs when you withdraw your money and you can’t hold a mobile in your hand for fear of somebody snatching it.
Lots of people don’t even look for a job and just try to live on social welfare as it pays better and they sign up for free housing . That’s right by not working you get free housing. By working, you have to pay for your house and their house. Now THATS a fail!
The only big plus, apart from family and cultural issues, are higher salaries for men and women and a small state pension and clean air, a more enlightened education system and more international feeling. They are significant pluses but jeez some big cities in the west are just creaking at the seams and in a sorry state. Which places are really failing?
I don’t know which capital city you’re talking about (Athens?), but that’s obviously not representative of the whole continent. So many places in Europe tick all your boxes!
[quote=“headhonchoII”]Taiwan has all the pieces sitting here waiting to turn this place around. They’ve got the money, the tech , the dense populations that make it easy to to roll out, stable institutions.
For instance, solar panels…easily could carpet the south with MIT solar panels. why the hell not?
cleaner transport is starting , just slow to move away from gasoline scooters.
to be honest I was looking into moving back to a capital of a European country, compared to where I live now, capital of Taiwan , it’s about twice as expensive with higher taxes thrown in and barely functioning public transport system. it’s actually a shambles. Tax on income over 40000 euro is 50% . That’s crazy. t
Rent is about two to three times higher than Taiwan, when they list the apartments they don’t even show size of apartment just how many bedrooms, most of the apartments are SMALLER than Taiwans apartments. Utilities about twice. VAT is 21% on almost everything t, it costs 1500 ntd to see a doctor. Car insurance and maintenance about 5x Taiwan. Fuel 2x Taiwan price.
Theres no subway line just a few rail lines and light rail, there’s no airport link. The roads are jammed with cars. The trains are jammed too. The light rails are jammed. The average commute must be about an hour one way with private vehicle, worse with public transport which is basically buses. They have been talking about building a subway line since the 1970s. Maybe one will get started on in the next 5-10 years. There might be one line built by 2025. Maybe. The bus is faster than the intercity trains, and nobody can afford to travel by train except pensioners who get free travel passes. You cant leave anything outside or it gets nicked and there is a serious drug problem on the streets. You have beggars hanging out at ATMs when you withdraw your money and you can’t hold a mobile in your hand for fear of somebody snatching it.
Lots of people don’t even look for a job and just try to live on social welfare as it pays better and they sign up for free housing . That’s right by not working you get free housing. By working, you have to pay for your house and their house. Now THATS a fail!
The only big plus, apart from family and cultural issues, are higher salaries for men and women and a small state pension and clean air, a more enlightened education system and more international feeling. They are significant pluses but jeez some big cities in the west are just creaking at the seams and in a sorry state. Which places are really failing?[/quote]
Thought you were talking about the ol country… just ad more violence.
I even had that queasy feeling when I was in Japan, the I am not as safe -maybe my imagination- maybe because they have more homeless people -and weirder-, maybe just because it was a different place. It was clean and neat but something was off.
That is the feeling I get here sometimes, that people are not happy. But never the hopelessness of the ol country of the feeling of danger. However, I know Taiwan could be better, much better, and it is a big fail that it is going back instead of moving forward, and that the youngster are looking at a much worse future. The warning signs are there, but the voices screaming foul are not being heed. As a matter of fact, they are shouted down, and that is very dangerous by itself.
I just wrote the numbers down to show that taiwan is far from a failed state Epsecually if you have a decent job or some assets like a house, it’s a very easy place to live, particularly Taipei (tian long guo) but even Kaoshiung and Taichung have very cheap and okay public transportation, at least it is rapidly improving. you are not getting hit for VAT in this or tax on that or fees for taking a pee in a train station.
Now if you don’t have a decent job or your own house given to you by your family, I think it’s a relatively hard place to live and I don’t think it’s getting easier for those folks, income inequality has been growing too. Housing prices doubled or more in the last 10 years in many places, salaries didn’t keep up with inflation. Taiwan has failed in giving its younger people (with no assets or help from family) a chance for them to really raise themselves up. The education system is also pathetic and completely outmoded. it’s an education system that mainly just goes through the motions.
I’m also concerned at the terrible demographics, who is going to pay for supporting all these old people, many of whom have retired in their 50s! I don’t see my kids living in Taiwan when they are older because I don’t think its a place for younger people to realize their dreams in this world, it’s becoming an old rich (and poor ) fogeys home and is too provincial.
There’s no law in the universe saying money and environment have to be conflicting. Back in business school, I remember reading a quite large amount of research papers demonstrating that sustainable businesses and very profitable businesses were indeed compatible. For instance, I remember reading about how Canada turned green building re-engineering into a multi-billion dollar industry wink wink Taiwan.[/quote]
Back in business school I learned how to make a buck. But the thing is you can earn those bucks in many different ways. Most seem to chose the ways that are not sustainable as there is nothing that keeps them from doing it. They’re actually rewarded for it.
Which is due to a lack of education and crappy regulation, not because sustainable and durable business is impossible (or even harder).
[quote=“Kawa”]not because sustainable and durable business is impossible (or even harder).[/quote]I have never made that argument.
Back to the original discussion I think that Icon has a point. The birth rate is a good indication of the state of things.
A lot of countries have very very low birth rates. Germany(or say, the entire continent of Europe excl. a few exceptions, ie Ireland and France), Japan, Korea, Singapore’s birth rates are all more or less the same as Taiwan’s, and in Germany and Japan’s case, their population is also quite a lot older, yet they are in much better shape than us.
I’m not saying that aging population is not a problem, but it’s far from the most urgent issue.