Preface
With globalization and a knowledge-based economy becoming a worldwide trend, global economic developments tend to be more spontaneous and transparent. Moreover, interconnections between economic entities and their mutual influences increase daily, creating opportunities for growth and industrial development on the one hand, but fueling competition on the other.
Keeping ahead of today’s intense competition necessitates an efficient use of Taiwan’s latent technology strengths, putting more impetus on forward-thinking, cross-sector integration, and creation of new industrial opportunities. The Government’s policies on industrial innovation, improvements in research capability, and enhancing the values of the service and manufacturing industries play a vital role in transforming Taiwan’s industry from being “efficiency-oriented” to being “innovation-oriented”. These policies will remain the main engine of industrial development.
In this regard, the Department of Industrial Technology under the Ministry of Economic Affairs supports the Industry and Technology Intelligence Services (ITIS) in its mission to integrate the resources of major professional think tanks, scrutinizing and analyzing the entire industrial development environment. This involves placing a particular focus on future markets, technology anticipation, discussions about potential opportunities, bringing together derivative capital knowledge, and developing knowledge-based integration services.
Topics of research for industrial development require more openness and a greater emphasis on valuing professional suggestions from different circles in formulating major industrial topics, tackling problems through strategic approaches, and providing candid suggestions to assist businesses in mastering global trends. By improving the chains of industrial value-added developments, efficiently equipping indigenous industries with global resources for optimum investment positions, and refocusing on “Taiwan Innovation”, industrial development can be reshaped to outmaneuver global competition.
To welcome the year 2008, the ITIS program addresses these important issues in this publication “Insights into Taiwanese Manufacturing–Retrospective Snapshots and Outlook for 2008”. The included research analyzes major industrial events, annual achievements, and industrial strategies and development trends to serve as reference material for every sphere of industry.
This publication not only discusses domestic and international economic issues and key industrial topics, but also gives a forward and retrospective analysis of Taiwan’s top 15 industries, including an industrial overview of 2007 and forecast for 2008, analyses and discussions of major topics and issues to edify the readers on Taiwan’s industrial developments and international competitiveness.