Click Focuses on Taiwan

The BBC technology program Click this week focused on the Taiwan computer industry. The writeup on the BBC pages says:

Spencer Kelly visits Taiwan to see how the country's manufacturers are thriving in the global consumer electronics market.

Sitting just off China's east coast, Taiwan has long been overshadowed by its big brother in the manufacturing game.

While China is on its way to becoming the planet's biggest economy, Taiwan is considered the technological workshop of South East Asia.

Already 90% of the world's laptops are produced in Taiwan, along with vast quantities of electronics from motherboards to mobile phones.

But Taiwanese companies have started to realise the favourable commercial conditions offered by its neighbour.

Some have moved their manufacturing to China, where enormous quantities of goods can be produced at bargain basement prices.

"Thirty to forty years ago Taiwan was manufacturing for USA and Japanese companies," said Jonathan Tsang, the chairman of Asus. "But now because the living standard is already high, the manufacturing cannot compete with China, so the manufacturing has been moved to China."

I did find the highlighted phrase above amusing. Taiwan has not STARTED to realize, they realized this many many many years ago. They are among the biggest investors in China and have been heavily involved in manufacturing in China for a long time. There are laws which prohibit the migration of certain technologies to China but, for the most part, a lot of the manufacturing is carried out by Taiwanese companies in China. Perhaps it is even more truthful to argue that the conditions in China are becoming more and more unfavourable with increased taxes and increased minimum wages.

OK enough about that. To be honest I was thrilled to see the program come to Taiwan and highlight the tremendous potential and innovation here. Taiwan definitely deserves the exposure and I feel Taiwan will continue to hold its on in the tech industry for some time to come.

You can watch the program online by clicking here.

BBC: Taiwan takes on tech innovation