Taipei’s offices and flats are in vogue as Taiwanese companies beat a safe passage home to flee Covid-19 in China, US trade war

Heightened tensions between the United States and China and the coronavirus pandemic have spurred demand among mainland China-based Taiwanese individuals and companies for residential and commercial property in Taiwan, analysts said.

Enquiries have more than doubled in the second quarter compared with the first three months of the year, said Michael Liu, founder and chief executive of luxury property agency Jubon Asset Management and an affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate. The demand grew out of US-China tensions and has been sustained by the outbreak on the mainland.

“Since the Taiwanese real estate market bottomed in 2016, the number of sales has been growing, especially because of the accelerated return of Taiwanese investors,” Liu said. “This economic recovery wave is expected to continue until 2021.”

The reasons for relocation might vary, but companies are essentially pursuing diversification of their production facilities because of escalating tensions between Washington and Beijing, and the Covid-19 pandemic, which closed factories and production lines in mainland China at the start of the year.

Hurt by the trade war and a continuous increase in production costs on the mainland, mainland China-based Taiwanese “have returned to set up factories and offices … reversing a past trend of industry migration”, Liu said.

Taipei has been rolling out initiatives to attract Taiwanese manufacturers and bring them back home. Last year, it launched a three-year programme that provides loans and fast tracks business registration processes. The programme has so far attracted 193 companies, which have invested a total of NT$777 billion (US$26 billion) in Taiwan, according to property consultancy CBRE.