Capital outflow, growth, investment: an eternal golden braid

Rift Valley near Ruisui.

Arguing that the government should get moving on the "free economic zones" , a commentary in the Taipei Times gave out some interesting figures on investment and growth:

....During the 1980s, Taiwan enjoyed an average annual growth rate of 7.7 percent. That figure fell to 6.4 percent during the 1990s and 4.4 percent during former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) two terms.

A major reason for this slowdown has been declining investment in Taiwan. The average ratio of investment to GDP was 28 percent during the 1990s and 23.1 percent during Chen’s presidency. Since 2008, the investment rate has fallen further to an average of 16.9 percent.

The outflow of capital and talent is a more serious problem. In the past six years, there has been a net capital outflow of US$202.2 billion — an average of US$40.4 billion per year. The worst capital outflow so far was in 2012, at US$52.3 billion.

Taiwan’s net capital outflow for Chen’s terms was US$105.8 billion — an average of US$13.2 billion per year.

Note how under Ma the outflow to China has accelerated -- the strategy behind ECFA is to hollow out the island's productive capacity while positioning the move within the prevailing neoliberal economic framework. The reality is insignificant investment from China, massive outflows of cash to China, and no investment in Taiwan's future. The expenditures on the fourth nuclear plant were a complete waste; we could have been solarizing Taiwan with locally-made products, driving that globally-competitive industry higher, and giving the island's wind industry a huge boost with purchases of wind.

Are we getting a boost from foreign investment? AmCham reports regularly on foreign direct investment....

Approved foreign direct investment in Taiwan was US$5.56 billion last year [2012], higher than the US$3.81 billion in 2010 and US$4.96 billion in 2011, but much lower than that of Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Singapore, AmCham chairman Alan Eusden said.

In 2013 the score was just $4.9 billion in "foreign" investment, with 29.2% of that coming from the British islands in the Caribbean and another 7.7% from Samoa, for a total of 36% from those offshore tax havens. That "foreign" investment is likely recycled Taiwanese cash. Thus, a little over $3.1 billion represents cash from foreigners who wanted to invest in Taiwan.

What can Taiwan do to reverse these trends?
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Daily Links:

• Gwynn Guilford on the housing bubble in Taipei gets it largely wrong. To understand how housing bubble began, see this Panorama piece
• A defection to China threatens Taiwan's national security.
• Jobless rate falls below 4% to 3.91%, but new graduates enter market next month.

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

Econ Round Up

The Ministry of Economic Affairs put out the numbers on FDI. From Digitimes:

Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) approved 2,308 foreign direct investment projects (except from China) totaling US$3.596 billion in January-September 2013, respectively increasing 20.40% and decreasing 8.59% on year.

......

In January-September, MOEA approved 103 investment projects proposed by China-based firms with total value of US$331.28 million. There were 310 approved projects of direct investment in China proposed by Taiwan-based companies or individuals with a total amount of US$6.354 billion, decreasing 8.28% and 21.02% respectively on year.

Looking at the numbers above, note how much "foreign" direct investment is coming from Caribbean islands. I bet a lot of that is recycling Taiwanese or Chinese money, not foreign at all, taking advantage of tax breaks and other incentives. Ditto for Samoa which comes in at number 5.

Also note that the number one foreign destination is Vietnam. Even as Ma pushes China Taiwanese are slowly shifting elsewhere. Investment in China from Taiwan declined according to the piece. Moreover, note how investment in China still dwarfs investment from China: $6.3 billion versus $0.33 billion. Remember how China was going to save Taiwan's economy and we had to have ECFA right now!!! It would be a colossal joke, if so many jobs had not been lost... ECFA was also supposed to boost FDI, but the last few years Taiwan's FDI performance has been grim...

The legislature is set to pass the NZ-Taiwan trade pact. Perhaps it will stimulate the permanently faltering economy...

Neither Taiwan's top economic planner, stung by a projection made in February that went badly wrong, or the chief of the country's statistics bureau were able to say on Monday if Taiwan's economy will grow by at least 2 percent this year.

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She said more time was needed to assess whether the economy will be able to grow 2 percent this year given the weakness in the country's exports in the third quarter, which totaled US$76.20 billion, short of the DGBAS's projection of US$78.04 billion.

The Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER) on Oct.15 cut its forecast for Taiwan's economic growth this year to 2.01 percent, from the 2.28 percent it estimated in July, citing lower-than-expected economic momentum in the second half of the year.

At his hearing, Kuan was given a hard time for his confident projection in February that Taiwan would see a "golden cross," with growth exceeding 4 percent and the jobless rate falling below 4 percent.

The Golden Cross comment was roasted in the Taipei Times this week as well:

During the January-to-last month period, the unemployment rate only went down 0.05 percentage points to 4.18 percent. That makes Taiwan’s job market the weakest among its Asian counterparts including Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea. Hong Kong’s jobless rate held pat in June and has stayed at 3.3 percent for four months, according to statistics provided by DGBAS. Japan and South Korea’s unemployment rates stood at 4.1 percent and 3.1 percent respectively in August, latest figures showed.

Kuan said that the remarks were a goal and indeed, that is what he actually said. The opening forecast of the year pegged growth at 3.5%, a figure which has fallen steadily over time.
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Daily Links:

• Thrips from Taiwan. I'll bet you've never heard of these suckers.
• Can Japan Defend the Senkakus?
• How orchids got so cheap: Taiwan tech
• DPP criticizes China for sacking pro-Democracy scholar. Good job, DPP.
• A look at Taiwan's solar industry.

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!