Asia Times has a long study of India's growing strategic and financial engagement with East Asia. A highlight:India needs to add as much as US$500 billion in investment into its infrastructure and Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan have expressed interest in diversifying their investment beyond China. South Korea is India's ninth-largest source of foreign investment, with Korean companies such as Daewoo, Hyundai, Samsung and LG having a significant presence in India. POSCO is investing $12 billion to construct an integrated steel plant in Orissa in India's single-largest inward investment. Meanwhile, Singapore has emerged as India's seventh-largest source of foreign investment with Temasek Holdings making significant investments in India's financial, pharmaceutical, logistics and information technology sectors.Meanwhile, Taiwan's diversification from China to Vietnam and elsewhere is continuing apace. The China Post notes:
There have also been a number of Japanese investments in India, most notably in New Delhi's metro subway system and Maruti. The Japanese government and corporate sector will also provide one-third of the funding for the $100 billion, 1,500 kilometer Delhi-Mumbai freight and industrial corridor, which is to begin construction in 2008 and be completed by 2012. Discussions are also proceeding on reaching a bilateral currency swap agreement between India and Japan. India is already the leading recipient of Japanese aid, receiving over $1 billion in 2005.
Numerous infrastructure projects also serve to tie India closer to East Asia. India is participating in the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific initiatives for an Asian Highway Network and the Trans-Asian Railway Network. Discussions are also proceeding on reopening the World War II-era Stilwell Road linking India's Assam state with China's Yunnan province through Myanmar. This follows the reopening of a direct overland trade route along the Nathu La Pass on the border between Sikkim and Tibet in July 2006 after 44 years.
E-United Group, one of Taiwan's leading conglomerates, is planning to build a town in Vietnam for one billion U.S. dollars that will include hospitals, schools, golf courses and business, the Economic Daily News reported Monday.The group is targeting about 500 hectares of land (1,235 acres) near Hanoi for the investment which will use the company's experience deployed at a similar project in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, the report said.
The Kaohsing-based group, whose core business is steel making, also runs a university, a high school and an elementary school and manages property development businesses. Vietnamese authorities hold a positive attitude towards the planned investment, the report said.
Taiwan is Vietnam's largest foreign investor, according to a Taipei Times report from earlier this year:
Ke, who led institute officials to Vietnam for a fact-finding trip in January, said that Vietnam has witnessed ever-expanding economic growth over the past several years, averaging 7 percent to 8 percent annually.
He also cited International Telecommunications Union data that shows Vietnam registered the world's second-highest growth in the telecommunications industry in recent years, behind only China.
He attributed Vietnam's success mainly to the country's abundant human resources.
Taiwan, which remains the largest investor in Vietnam, will benefit by continuing to increase its investment, Ke said.
Pham said that Vietnam, a relative "newcomer" to high-tech manufacturing, hopes to strengthen exchanges with Taiwan in this regard.
As of the end of last November, Taiwanese firms had channeled US$8.13 billion into Vietnam, constituting 13.74 percent of all foreign investment in Vietnam, the institute's data showed.
Onward to India!
[Taiwan] [Vietnam] [India]
I won't worry about India because you can't even open a chain super market there! Because??...I will let you guys answer this :)
ReplyDelete...Chinese labor moves up the value chain, businesses look elsewhere for low-cost labor...and the world goes on.
ReplyDeleteThe price of unskilled mainland labor has shot up more than threefold in the past decade for the costal and near-coastal provinces, less for the inner and less-developed provinces. I'm sure the situation is similar for skilled professionals.
I work within the E-United group now, and yeah, the Vietnam investment is huge. Of course, it doesn't match the total Chinese investment we've made, but it's a change in the old strategy.
ReplyDeleteThe university they own is has two campuses, and that elementary school is also a bi-lingual, international school.
The real estate they're building down here in Kaohsiung is also very impressive. A little far out there, but very nice.
Other than China, India will probably continue to have the fastest long-term growing economy in the world. It's pretty much flooded with investor capital right now, though, and I'm not sure it offers the same long term benefits that Vietnam would.
ReplyDeleteLiberalizing its policies towards Indian immigrants would probably help Taiwan quite a bit, though.