“How to Start a Business in Taiwan” book sold in 12 countries
Starting a business in Taiwan is something people think of all over the world, that is the first observation we can make when looking at our statistics since we launched our website, in January, along with our book in March.
We sold the book in 11 countries outside of Taiwan, among which Hong-Kong, South Africa, Russia, Germany, Austria and the UK.
Website seen in 54 countries
Our website’s global reach is even wider, as we received visits from over 54 countries, on all continents, including countries such as Ghana, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Ukraine, Venezuela, Costa Rica, New Zealand, Bangladesh or Norway. A deeper analysis of our visitors and Inward Foreign Direct Investment (IFDI) can show the relevance of Taiwan as a place to invest in Asia. The conclusion is that there is no dominant inward flow from a country/area to Taiwan, but multiple flows.
Europe is Taiwan’s first investor
According to the latest IFDI study from the Vale Center of Columbia University, and not surprisingly, Europe, Asia and North America are the main roots of IFDI in Taiwan (if we exclude tax havens such as without British Overseas Territories in the Caribbean), with respectively 40.32%, 33.81% and 11.42%, over 85% of the total. However we can highlight the relatively weak performance of 2010 for the US, with a weight of 11.21% in Taiwan’s total IFDI, when US hit 17.46% in 2008. If we consider the visits on our website, the same trio accounts easily for 85% of the total number of unique visits, with US accounting for 17.56% of the total.
In Europe, as in Asia, investments are made from multiple countries. For Europe, no country represents more than 5% of the visits, but 4 countries are between 4.75% and 3.50%.
Picture of the Representative Office Staff in Oslo, Norway – Credit: Geir Yeh Fotland
Here is a comparison table of the top 10 investing countries in Taiwan, and of the top 10 countries visiting our website:
