Taiwan opens itself to investors from China
A new cross-strait trade arrangement seeks to bring mainland companies to Taiwan, but may harm local businesses
A new trade agreement was drafted between Taiwan and the mainland on June 21, strengthening cross-strait commercial ties, but provoking harsh criticism from opponents who say it will harm local businesses.
Under the agreement, 80 mainland industries will be open to investment from Taiwan and 64 Taiwan industries will be open to investment from the mainland. The industries include finance, travel, traditional Chinese medicine, telecommunications, information technology, construction and publishing. The agreement is a follow-up to 2010’s Economic Co-operation Framework Agreement (ECFA), which was designed to increase commercial cross-strait co-operation. It was drafted by Lin Join-sane, chairman of the Taipei-based Straits Exchange Foundation, and his counterpart Chen Deming, president of Beijing’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits.
As part of the agreement, mainland investors in a service trade and up to two "cadres" (technicians or executives) will be allowed to come to Taiwan on an investor visa if their investments exceed US$300,000. For each additional US$500,000, another cadre will be allowed into Taiwan, with the maximum capped at seven people.
“For a typical ‘one child’ Chinese family,” the report said, “it seems that as long as you have US$300, the father [the head investor] mother [cadre number one] and child [cadre number two] can all go to Taiwan as disguised immigrants.”
The report said this arrangement was “much lower than…Europe’s investment immigration provisions,” citing the United Kingdom’s requirement of at least one million pounds to obtain an investor visa - 750,000 of which must be invested in private companies or unit trusts. Hong Kong has a similar investor visa programme - the capital investment entrant scheme (CIES) - which requires HK$10 million from investors and permanent residency in another country for mainland applicants.
But Linda Chang, chief of Taiwan's Information and Protocol Section of the Mainland Affairs Council, said Taiwan's investor visa requirements were similar to those of other countries. She said investors who come to Taiwan under the new agreement would not be considered immigrants.