00:00What is behind the general business confidence in Taiwan, both over the next 12 months and over a more long-term period?
00:07In this year's Business Climate Survey, a survey that we conduct every year in the fourth quarter and released this month in January,
00:16we saw sustained high levels of confidence from our members in both the future economic outlook for the next 12 months,
00:25as well as their own revenue prospects for the next 12 months and three years.
00:31When we look at what's behind that, Taiwan obviously has many great strengths.
00:35Among those are rule of law, a tremendously talented base of intellectual capacity and workforce,
00:46and also an established role at the center of some of the world's most important existing and future industries.
00:54So when we take all that together and look at prospects both for the economy and for company growth,
01:02our members reflect back that about 80 percent see the economy as either sustained or getting even better over the coming 12 months,
01:11and an even higher number are saying so for their own revenues.
01:15One of the more surprising numbers is that only 7 percent of businesses say they were affected significantly by cross-strait relations,
01:22and we've seen more domestic issues such as energy actually take more significance in this business report.
01:29Can you talk a little bit about how some of these domestic issues, such as energy, are now leapfrogging concerns about cross-strait relations?
01:38And we've certainly seen geopolitical uncertainty rise to certain high levels over these recent years.
01:44If we go back to 2022, again taking our survey in the fourth quarter of each year,
01:51it came just a few short months after Speaker Pelosi's visit to Taiwan when the media globally,
01:58locally was very much focused on what was happening around Taiwan, and so we saw the numbers spike.
02:06The following year they came back down, and then this year, third year now, we've seen them really stabilize on that question.
02:13So what I think we're seeing is that there is a settling in, that people see this as the new reality.
02:19It's become, our members have become more or less accustomed to that reality.
02:24They've factored that into their plans.
02:26Forty percent, for example, of our members are saying that they're developing business continuity plans to help mitigate impacts, etc.
02:33And so the questions return to sort of these ones of what can Taiwan do,
02:38what can all of us do as stakeholders to improve Taiwan's economic outlook and prospects,
02:43and that is indeed where energy came out as a top area of concern and interest from our members.
02:49One of the additional domestic concerns was over government regulation and transparency.
02:55Can you speak to a little bit about what you're hearing on the ground,
02:57not so much concerning the lack of transparency, but about how regulation and transparency can improve?
03:04So for the last 10 plus years, the American Chamber of Commerce in Taiwan
03:10has promoted what's known as good regulatory practice.
03:14This is a concept of how to get the maximum amount of input and ideas from all stakeholders,
03:22the public, companies, and every institution, in the formation of new rules and regulations.
03:29And Taiwan actually has done quite well in terms of how the infrastructure
03:35for the development of good regulatory practice has been rolled out over these years.
03:39But we have seen some of the practical aspects of implication,
03:43the results of that implementation, being less than desirable.
03:47So our members have reported that they have concern
03:51about whether rules and regulations and laws are interpreted on a consistent basis.
03:56And so there's still definitely room for improvement.
03:59But I think it's important to remember that when we talk about room for improvement,
04:02we are talking about comparing Taiwan to the very highest standards globally.
04:06We think that as a democracy, as a place where the public is engaged on so many other issues,
04:12rulemaking should be subject to the exact same kind of public oversight and involvement
04:17as the rest of Taiwan's system.
04:19Just recently, we've seen the United States House pass a bill regarding double taxation
04:24between the United States and Taiwan.
04:27Can you speak a little bit to the importance of this legislation?
04:31Yes.
04:32We were very pleased to see that the U.S. House has passed that
04:36on an almost unanimous basis in the past couple of days.
04:40And it's something that our members have advocated for and asked for for quite some time.
04:45We see this as helping the U.S.-Taiwan trade relationship in really two key ways.
04:50One is that there are many small and medium-sized enterprises,
04:54really on both sides, that want to invest in both directions,
04:58but may feel, especially for those smaller companies,
05:01that there are some limitations associated with taxation regimes.
05:04And secondly, we think that this kind of initiative,
05:07like so many other things going on now between Washington and Taipei,
05:10is good for the overall relationship.
05:12It's a mutual recognition of how important each side is to the other.
05:16Dan, thank you very much for joining us.
05:18My pleasure.
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