The Status and an Evaluation of the Electronics Industry in Taiwan

Taiwan’s information technology industry has experienced phenomenal growth in the last decade, and it is currently ranked among the largest in the world. The growth has been overwhelmingly export-oriented, with microcomputers and computer monitors leading in terms of both growth and production shares. The island also has a very large production of electronic parts and components. Taiwan’s exports of these information technology products still consists of items with low average unit value, though in the case of monitors its exports have rapidly converged to the world average. The share of exports concentrated in the 20 leading firms has declined steeply over the last decade, reflecting the dynamism of the small- and medium-scale firm sector. Likewise the share of foreign invested firms in exports has fallen significantly, indicating the relative strength of domestic firms. The degree of concentration of information product exports on the US market has also fallen, reflecting ...