Searching for information regarding the regulations for investment in Asian countries is a painstaking job given the abundance of information on the internet. Nevertheless it is a dramatically important step for every investor. To further discuss about advantages in investing in Taiwan, we must compare with other countries.
Taiwan’s rank for doing business
Doingbusiness.org can be a very helpful tool on that matter. The site powered by the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation provides objective measures of business regulations and their enforcement across 185 economies and selected cities at the sub national and regional level. These reports provide data on the ease of doing business, rank each location, and recommend reforms to improve performance in each of the indicator areas.
Focusing on their overall index for doing business Asia-Pacific region, Taiwan is ranked 4th, behind Singapore, Hong-Kong and Malaysia. In this blog post we will offer you some comparison of Taiwan and these three countries regarding some more detailed and precise information. The first step is the comparison between Taiwan and Singapore.
Taiwan and Singapore: Macro-Comparison
Ownership: 100% foreign ownership is permitted with Taiwan business registration. A minimum of one shareholder is required for business registration in Taiwan if the shareholder is a corporate body. That is not the case with Singapore where in accordance with section 145 (1) of the Singapore Company Act 1963, Singapore company integration requires appointment of at least one director that is ordinarily resident in Singapore.
Cost of living: As a lot of companies want to make Singapore their headquarters, the city becomes overcrowded. This makes Singapore 3rd most expensive city for living in Asia (eight in the world) (). Taipei ranks 31st in the Asian-Pacific region.
Taxes: Singapore reaches 78.5 on the “Tax Misery Report” handed out by Forbes in 2009, which is 3.5 points higher than Taiwan. In other words, imposed taxes by the Taiwanese government are slightly lower than in Singapore. That was wuite unexpected, as Singapore is known to be one of the world’s lightest tax burden.
Connections
Geographically, and even more culturally Taiwan is closer to the world second biggest that is China. The language, cross-straits connected companies are some of the advantages that Taiwan has regarding Singapore. Successful investment venture in Taiwan can build up reputation and make it easier to create connections and network in the Mainland China. It is the best doorstep to jump in to the Chinese market.