Національне антикорупційне бюро повідомило про підозру у заволодінні майном ДП «НАЕК «Енергоатом» екс-народного депутата України та його ймовірного спільника, керівника структурного підрозділу ДП «НАЕК «Енергоатом». Про це заявили на Facebook-сторінці відомства.

«Як з’ясували детективи НАБУ, учасники угруповання у 2008–2012 роках штучно створили умови проведення низки тендерів, завдяки яким переможцем визнано чеську компанію Škoda JS (фактичним власником є російське ЗАТ «Об’єднані машинобудівні заводи») із завищеними на 6,4 мільйонів євро ціновими пропозиціями, що в окремих випадках складало до 20% від вартості обладнання. У подальшому, після отримання зазначених коштів за контрактами, укладеними з ДП «НАЕК «Енергоатом», Škoda JS перерахувала 6,4 млн євро на рахунок компанії «BRADCREST INVESTMENT S.A.» (Панамська Республіка), єдиним власником (бенефіціаром) якої є екс-народний депутат України», – мовиться у повідомленні.

За даними НАБУ, на рахунку зазначеної компанії у швейцарському банку за запитом Національного бюро про міжнародну правову допомогу арештовано кошти у сумі, еквівалентній 86,4 мільйона гривень.

У повідомленні НАБУ не називає імен посадовців, кому саме оголошено про підозру, однак вказує, що розслідування тривало із 2015 року.

Між тим, як раніше повідомляло Радіо Свобода, у 2015 році детективи Національного антикорупційного бюро відкрили два кримінальні провадження, які пов’язані з екс-депутатом Миколою Мартиненком. Одне з них – за фактом одержання хабарів при закупівлі підприємством «Енергоатом» обладнання в чеського акціонерного товариства Škoda JS. За повідомленнями, Мартиненко неофіційно контролює цю компанію в галузі ядерного машинобудування. Крім того, стало відомо і про слідство в цій самій справі щодо Мартиненка в Чехії. Він ці звинувачення відкидає і називає їх нісенітницею й маніпуляцією. 22 квітня 2017 року суд відпустив Мартиненка на поруки.

Державне підприємство «Національна атомна енергогенеруюча компанія «Енергоатом», створене у жовтні 1996 році, є оператором чотирьох атомних електростанцій України, на яких експлуатується 15 атомних енергоблоків. «Енергоатом» забезпечує близько 55% потреби України в електроенергії, в осінньо-зимові періоди цей показник сягає 70%.
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Jordan’s high and rising public debt has worried the International Monetary Fund and prompted a downgrade from Standard & Poor’s. So the government is planning a blast of austerity by year-end.

Tax hikes and subsidy cuts —- likely to be highly unpopular —- are on the agenda as the country’s debt to GDP ratio has reached a record 95 percent, from 71 percent in 2011.

“Postponing problems might increase the popularity of the government but would be a crime against the nation,” Prime Minister Hani Mulki told a group of parliamentarians this week.

After an IMF standby arrangement that brought some fiscal stability, Jordan agreed last year to a more ambitious three-year program of long-delayed structural reforms to cut public debt to 77 percent of GDP by 2021.

The debt is at least in part due to successive governments adopting an expansionist fiscal policy characterized by job creation in the bloated public sector, and by lavish subsidies for bread and other staple goods.

It also hiked spending on welfare and public sector pay in a move to ensure stability in the aftermath of the “Arab Spring” protests in the region in 2011. But the economy has slowed, battered by the turmoil in neighboring Syria and Iraq.

The economic strains reduced local revenue and foreign aid, forcing Jordan to borrow heavily externally and also resort to more domestic financing.

Although there has been some progress this year with improving remittances, tourism and some rebound in exports, there has been no pickup in growth since 2015 — with the officials forecasting 2 percent growth this year from an earlier IMF 2.3 percent target.

“This year we are at a crossroads. Everything I am trying to do is to stop the hemorrhage and start breathing,” Mulki was quoted as saying at another meeting to garner support.

The rising debt accentuated by the protracted regional conflicts on Jordan’s borders was the main reason Standard and Poor last week downgraded its sovereign rating to B+.

Subsidy risk

Economists said Jordan’s ability to maintain a costly subsidy system and a large state bureaucracy was increasingly untenable in the absence of large foreign capital inflows or infusions of foreign aid, which have dwindled as the Syrian crisis has gone on.

Jordanian officials say they expect less donor support next year than any time since the crisis began. They are also concerned that Gulf states, hit by lower oil prices, have so far not committed any support funds given after the “Arab Spring” to be renewed.

Politicians and economists say the government’s fiscal consolidation plan envisages a doubling of bread prices and raising sales taxes on basic food and fuel items.

This should cut into the estimated 850 million dinars ($1.2 billion) the government pays in annual subsidies from bread to electricity to water.

But economists reckon subsidy cuts are bound to worsen the plight of poorer Jordanians, a majority of the country’s population, and removing subsidies has triggered civil unrest in the past.

As well as debt, the IMF has also pointed to the unemployment rate, which has risen sharply in the last two years to 16 percent, and to low tax collection.

The IMF says Jordan stands out among countries in the region with among the lowest tax collections. Personal taxes constituting only 0.4 percent of GDP, with nearly 95 percent of the population not subject to income tax.

Critics say any hikes would extract more from the segment of salaried employees that already pays while leaving influential business tycoons outside the tax net.

“The tax burden in comparison with countries of the region except the oil producers is low… there is big generosity in exemptions,” said Jihad Azour, the IMF’s director of the Middle East and Central Asia department during a recent visit to Jordan.

Economists fear that the IMF’s tax recommendations endorsed by the government that range from expanding corporate income tax to dividends and tougher sanctions for tax evaders will hurt business sentiment in a country whose political stability has turned it a safe haven.

“It’s important to activate growth to bolster stability and ensure a faster drop in debt,” said the IMF’s Azour adding that tackling Jordan debt problem was crucial for its future prosperity in a turbulent region.
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Кабінет міністрів призначив Григорія Плачкова головою Державної інспекції ядерного регулювання та звільнив із посади голови Державної служби України з питань геодезії, картографії та кадастру Олега Цвяха.

Плачков очолив Державну інспекцію ядерного регулювання замість виконувача обов’язків голови відомства Бориса Столярчука. А той, як повідомлялося, був призначений після того, як попередній керівник інспекції Сергій Божко помер 6 лютого цього року.

Як заявив під час засідання уряду прем’єр-міністр Володимир Гройсман, він також буде наполягати на проведенні перевірки діяльності голови Держгеокадастру.

«Ми говорили про Держгеокадастр. Є нарікання й на Укртрансінспекцію від бізнесу: то дозволи якісь не видають, то вимагають щось за дозволи. Є нарікання на інспекцію з праці: замість того, щоб займатись безпекою праці реально і детінізацією, вони невідомо чим займаються, ходять, доять бізнес», – сказав він.

Володимир Гройсман заявив про відсторонення від служби виконувача обов’язків голови Держгеокадастру Олега Цвяха 24 жовтня в ході засідання Ради регіонального розвитку.

Державний земельний кадастр – це державна геоінформаційна система відомостей про землі, розташовані в межах державного кордону України, їхнє цільове призначення і обмеження у використанні. Кадастр містить дані про кількісну та якісну характеристику земель, їх оцінку, розподіл між власниками та користувачами. Держгеокадастр, серед іншого, забезпечує раціональне використання земель.
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Компанія «Укрзалізниця» має намір запровадити електронний квиток на регіональні потяги та запустити електронний сервіс для купівлі квитків у країни Європейського союзу із 2018 року, заявив на засіданні уряду виконувач обов’язків голови правління Євген Кравцов.

«Планується, що впродовж наступного року ми зможемо запустити велику кількість нових електронних сервісів. Це онлайн-продаж квитків на всі сполучення з ЄС, це впровадження електронного квитка на всіх регіональних потягах, це онлайн-бронювання додаткових послуг, котрі сьогодні надає «Укрзалізниця» і котрі ми недостатньо просуваємо. Також дуже важливо – це інтероперабельність у пасажирському господарстві з іншими видами сполучень. Перш за все – це автобусні трансфери. Плануємо запустити єдиний квиток із автобусним трансфером для української залізниці», – сказав він.

Окрім того, за словами Кравцова, наступного року «Укрзалізниця» планує пілотний проект щодо приміських потягів у київському вузлі.

«Це має бути сполучення модернізованими електричками з інтервалом руху потягів у 20–25 хвилин на найбільш пріоритетних напрямках приміського сполучення – Ірпінь, Буча, Немішаєве, Бровари», – зазначив чиновник.

На переконання Кравцова, це має дозволити розвантажити автошляхи і покращити ситуацію людям, які їздять до столиці на роботу із передмість і сусідніх населених пунктів.

18 січня Кабінет міністрів вивів «Укрзалізницю» з підпорядкування Міністерства інфраструктури і передав в управління уряду.

18 жовтня міністр інфраструктури Володимир Омелян заявив, що Київський апеляційний адміністративний суд підтвердив незаконність передачі ПАТ «Укрзалізниця» з підпорядкування Мінінфраструктури до Мінекономрозвитку. За його словами, апеляційні скарги Кабміну і Мінекономрозвитку суд залишив без задоволення.
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Україна поліпшила свої позиції в рейтингу легкості ведення бізнесу за версією Світового Банку Doing Business на чотири позиції і піднялася на 76-те місце. Про це повідомив президент України Петро Порошенко у своєму Twitter.

«Україна піднялася ще на чотири позиції в щорічному рейтингу Doing Business. Тепер ми 76-і серед 190 країн», – написав Порошенко. 

Офіційний рейтинг легкості ведення бізнесу від Світового банку Doing Business 2018 буде оприлюднений 31 жовтня.

Мінекономрозвитку прогнозувало, що Україна може піднятися в рейтингу легкості ведення бізнесу від Світового банку Doing Business 2018 на 10 позицій – до 70-го місця, що потенційно може приносити до країни щороку додатково мільярд доларів інвестицій.
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An unprecedented Chinese financial and construction effort is rapidly developing Pakistan’s strategically located Arabian Sea port of Gwadar into one of the world’s largest transit and transshipment cargo facilities.

The deep water port lies at the convergence of three of the most commercially important regions of the world, the oil-rich Middle East, Central Asia, and South Asia.

Beijing is developing Gwadar as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, known as CPEC. The two countries launched the 15-year joint mega project in 2015 when President Xi Jinping visited Islamabad.

Under the cooperation deal construction or improvement of highways, railways, pipelines, power plants, communications and industrial zones is underway in Pakistan with an initially estimated Chinese investment of $46 billion.

The aim is to link Gwadar to landlocked western China, including its Muslim-majority Xinjiang region, giving it access to a shorter and secure route through Pakistan to global trade. The port will also provide the shortest route to landlocked Central Asian countries, including Afghanistan, through transit trade and offering transshipment facilities.

Chinese fuel imports and trading cargo will be loaded on trucks and ferried to and from Xinjiang through the Karakoram Highway, snaking past snow-caped peaks in northern Pakistan.

‘Qualitative change’

Gwadar will be able to handle about one million tons of cargo annually by the end of the year. Officials anticipate that with expansion plans under way, the port will become South Asia’s biggest shipping center within five years, with a yearly capacity of handling 13-million tons of cargo. And by 2030, they say, it will be capable of handling up to 400-million tons of cargo annually.

China has in recent months begun calling CPEC  the flagship project of its global Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI. The “qualitative change” from an experimental project to flagship project underscores the importance Beijing attaches to CPEC, said Zhao Lijian, the deputy chief of mission at the Chinese embassy in Islamabad.

Out of 39 “early harvest” projects under CPEC, 19 have since been completed or are under construction with a Chinese investment of about $18.5 billion, Lijian told VOA. The progress makes it the fastest developing of all of at least six BRI’s corridors China plans to establish, added the Chinese diplomat.

Gwadar is a “symbol of regional peace and prosperity” because it will connect countries around Pakistan to serve their trading interests, said port Chairman Dostain Khan Jamaldini.

Jamaldini dismissed as “not true” concerns that skilled Chinese laborers, engineers and businesses will flood Pakistan, hurting domestic industries. About 65 percent of the labor force on construction and other projects at Gwadar is Pakistani, and the number of Chinese is currently just over 300, he added.

Security concerns and India’s claims over some of the territory crossed by the massive project remain key challenges for Gwadar and CPEC in general. Pakistani and Chinese officials dismiss reported assertions that Beijing is expanding its presence at Gwadar to be able to handle naval ships and military transport planes.

The collaboration has “no strategic or political” aims against a third country, insisted Lijian. He went on to assert that the purpose of CPEC” is to help our iron brother Pakistan” to improve its economy and to strengthen the bilateral relationship.

Pakistani officials have trained and deployed about 15,000 troops and paramilitary forces to guard CPEC-related projects and the Chinese working on them. Islamabad alleges that the Indian intelligence agency has been tasked to plot subversive acts to derail CPEC.

Sleepy fishing town

Gwadar, with a population of around 100,000, mostly fishermen and boat makers, is often referred to as a sleepy fishing town.

The costal city’s poverty-stricken residents are hoping new employment opportunities will be created for them in the wake of the massive development underway in Gwadar.

But their immediate challenges are shortages of clean drinking water and hours long daily power blackouts.

“We are happy Chinese are building port, hospitals, schools and roads but right now we out of power during most of the day and limited water availability,” said fisherman Khalil Ahmed.

The family, like other fishermen in Gwadar, has been plying unspoiled crystal blue waters of the Arabian Sea for decades with age-old fishing techniques and barely surviving on limited income because financial resources do not allow them to buy modern fishing tools.

However, ongoing massive economic activity will “qualitatively” change the lives of its poverty-stricken residents for the better, says Mushahid Hussain, who chairs a parliamentary committee on CPEC.

He says a fisheries processing plant is being installed at the port and arrangements are being planned to train and equip fishermen to improve and export local fish to other parts of Pakistan and China.

Senator Hussain believes economic projects under construction in Gwadar will help its people and address long-running grievances of the province of Baluchistan, where the port is situated.

The poverty-stricken largest Pakistani province has long been in the grip of a low-level Baluchistan separatist insurgency, which mainly stems from demands from the federal government for local control over Baluchistan’s vast natural resources.

Gwadar’s existing 50-bed government hospital is being extended to 300 beds, a technical and vocational institute is being constructed, a 300-megawatts coal-based power plant and a desalination plant are being installed, a new international airport and a six-lane international standard expressway are being built to connect Gwadar port with the rest of Pakistan and neighboring countries, including Iran and Afghanistan.

Local officials say most of the projects, including the new airport, are being built with Chinese financial grants. The rest of the projects in Gwadar and elsewhere in Pakistan under CPEC are being built with “interest-free” and “soft-loans” from China.

 
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The U.S. economy is expected add another 11.5 million jobs by 2026, as an aging population and longer life spans raise the need for health care providers. The total U.S. workforce is expected to grow to 167.6 million people.

Tuesday’s projections come from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which says job growth will accelerate slightly from its current pace, but it will not return to the brisk gains seen the over previous decades. The BLS updates its job outlook every two years as new information becomes available.

The percentage of the workforce over age 55 will rise to nearly one-quarter in 2026, a sharp increase from the less than 17 percent back in 2006. People in their 50s and 60s may retire, which is one reason experts expect workforce participation rates (the percentage of working age people who have jobs or are seeking work) to decline.

Over the decade, nine out of 10 new jobs will be in the services sector, particularly health care. Employment by companies that produce goods is expected to grow at a meager one-tenth of one percent a year, with a gain of just 219,000 jobs by 2026.

The workforce is expected to become more diverse as Asian and Hispanic parts of the U.S. population grow more quickly than average. Whoever is in the workforce will find additional education important, as two out of three jobs in the fastest-growing areas require at least some post-secondary education and training.

And the whole economy is predicted to expand at a two percent annual rate. That is faster than the current growth rate, but below the gains seen in previous decades.

 
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Amazon said Monday that it received 238 proposals from cities and regions in the United States, Canada and Mexico hoping to be the home of the company’s second headquarters.

The online retailer kicked off its hunt for a second home base in September, promising to bring 50,000 new jobs and spend more than $5 billion on construction. Proposals were due last week, and Amazon made clear that tax breaks and grants would be a big deciding factor on where it chooses to land.

Amazon.com Inc. said the proposals came from 43 U.S. states as well as Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, three Mexican states and six Canadian provinces. In a tweet, the company said it was “excited to review each of them.”

Besides looking for financial incentives, Amazon had stipulated that it was seeking to be near a metropolitan area with more than a million people; be able to attract top technical talent; be within 45 minutes of an international airport; have direct access to mass transit; and be able to expand that headquarters to as much as 8 million square feet in the next decade.

Generous tax breaks and other incentives can erode a city’s tax base. For the winner, it could be worth it, since an Amazon headquarters could draw other tech businesses and their well-educated, highly paid employees.

The seven U.S. states that Amazon said did not apply were: Arkansas, Hawaii, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming.

Ahead of the deadline, some cities turned to stunts to try and stand out: Representatives from Tucson, Arizona, sent a 21-foot tall cactus to Amazon’s Seattle headquarters; New York lit the Empire State Building orange to match Amazon’s smile logo.

The company plans to remain in its sprawling Seattle headquarters, and the second one will be “a full equal” to it, founder and CEO Jeff Bezos said in September. Amazon has said that it will announce a decision sometime next year.
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Sierra Leone hopes to raise millions of dollars for development projects by auctioning a huge uncut diamond, believed to be one of the world’s largest, in New York in December.

It will be the government’s second attempt to sell the 709-carat gem, known as the “Peace Diamond”, after it rejected the highest bid of $7.8 million at an initial auction in New York in May.

Over half of the proceeds from the sale will be used to fund clean water, electricity, education and health projects in Sierra Leone, and particularly in the village of Koryardu, in the Kono region in eastern Sierra Leone, where the diamond was discovered.

“There’s a reason God gave these diamonds to the poorest people in the world and made the richest people want them. This is Tikun Olam [Hebrew for correcting the world], this is making the world a better place,” Martin Rapaport, chairman of Rapaport Group, a network of diamond companies which will manage the auction, told Reuters.

The diamond, which the auctioneers described as the 14th largest in the world, was unearthed in Koryardu in March by a Christian pastor who gave it to the government.

Diamonds fuelled a decade-long civil war in Sierra Leone, ending in 2002, in which rebels forced civilians to mine the stones and bought weapons with the proceeds, leading to the term “blood diamonds.”
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The U.S. Federal Reserve will raise interest rates in December and twice next year, according to a Reuters poll of economists, who now worry that the central bank will slow its tightening because of expectations that inflation will remain low.

Most respondents expected the nation’s economy to determine future rate hikes, but a change in regime at the Fed could also affect monetary policy.

U.S. President Donald Trump could decide this week whether to reappoint Fed Chair Janet Yellen, whose term ends in February, since he has concluded interviews with five candidates for that post.

“There is a greater-than-usual degree of uncertainty around monetary policy next year, with the Fed’s leadership up in the air,” wrote RBC economist Josh Nye.

A Reuters poll of economists published last week showed Fed Board Governor Jerome Powell getting the top job, although most said reappointing Yellen would be the best option.

Still, a vast majority of the more than 100 economists in the latest poll expect rate hikes to depend largely on how the U.S. economy performs.

“Despite intense speculation about the next Fed chair, the path of policy rates is still likely to be driven primarily by the data, regardless of who is nominated,” said Christian Keller, head of economics research at Barclays.

Forty of the 50 economists who answered an extra question also said the U.S. economy, which is on a steady growth path, did not need a big fiscal stimulus in the form of sweeping tax cuts.

The dollar rose on Friday after the Senate approved a budget proposal for the 2018 fiscal year that cleared a critical hurdle for a tax-cut package.

But the need for such a large stimulus to boost the U.S. economy at this late stage of its cycle, when the jobless rate is at more than a 16-year low, remains questionable.

“The U.S. needs to return to a sustainable fiscal path, and I have little faith that sweeping tax cuts will generate enough growth to put us on that path,” said Bank of the West economist Scott Anderson.

While recent U.S. economic data has improved, the closely watched core PCE inflation measure has been below its medium-term target of 2 percent for more than five years, despite strong employment growth.

The latest poll, taken Oct. 16-23, showed scant expectations of economic growth lifting off from its current trend or of inflation reaching the Fed’s target before 2019.

That has divided Fed policymakers and raised doubts about the pace of further rate hikes, according to minutes from the Sept. 19-20 meeting.

Still, economists predicted the Fed would raise rates 25 basis points to 1.25-1.50 percent in December. All 100 economists polled expect it to keep policy on hold at its next meeting.

The central bank is projecting three more rate increases in 2018, while economists expect only two next year, which would take the fed funds rate to 1.75-2.00 percent.

But about two-thirds of 52 economists who answered an extra question said risks to those forecasts were skewed more toward a slower pace of rate hikes. Fifteen of those respondents suspected there could be fewer than two increases next year.

The remaining 17 economists said there was a greater chance of faster rate hikes.

Economic growth probably took a hit from the devastation caused by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.

The consensus in the latest Reuters poll was for an annualized expansion of 2.4 percent in the third quarter, down from 2.6 percent in last month’s survey. Growth expectations for this quarter remained at 2.5 percent.

The median full-year forecast was 2.2 percent for 2017 and 2.3 percent for next year.

Predictions for core PCE inflation have not changed much from last month, with the consensus now in a 1.4-1.9 percent range through the end of next year even though the jobless rate has fallen well below 5 percent.

 
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Taiwan is offering visa waivers and setting up overseas investment offices across a swathe of countries to its south, the latest moves to deepen a rebalancing of economic relations away from political foe China.

Officials in Taipei hope to foster more tourism, trade and higher education links with 18 countries covering most of South and Southeast Asia plus Australia and New Zealand. Stronger ties in theory would reduce the role of China, which is Taiwan’s top trading partner now, as the two sides struggle over political differences.

In the latest phase of Taiwan’s effort, called the New Southbound Policy, Philippine citizens may visit Taiwan visa-free for 14 days during a trial period that starts next month and ends in July. Taiwan offered waivers to citizens of Brunei and Thailand in August 2016. Those efforts complement new investment offices, growth in the number of university students in Taiwan and more Taiwanese development aid.

“The purpose of the New Southbound Policy is for us to hold a more advantageous position in international society,” Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said in a National Day speech earlier this month. “I also want to use this opportunity to tell our friends from around the world that faced with a rapidly changing Asia-Pacific region. Taiwan is ready to play a more important role in shaping regional prosperity and stability.”

Shaky relations with China

Tsai announced the New Southbound Policy after taking office in May 2016 to rebalance relations for Taiwan’s $529 billion economy.

Taiwanese business people traditionally choose China for investment because of its relatively low costs, skilled workforce and cultural links. More than 93,000 Taiwanese businesses invested in China between 1988 and 2016, according to the American think tank Council on Foreign Relations.

But China claims sovereignty over Taiwan despite the island’s democratic self-rule, causing enough friction to stop dialogue under Tsai’s presidency.

How the New Southbound Policy works

Taiwan’s economic affairs ministry has established investment offices in Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines to help investors find projects in those countries based on local needs.

The Taiwan government is offering as well credit guarantees for smaller businesses headed to Southeast Asia, where aid from Taipei will help pay for infrastructure and other major projects in those countries. The visa waivers facilitate travel to Taiwan, another boon to the economy.

Taiwan’s trade with the 18 countries covered by the policy had risen 20 percent this year compared to last, Tsai said in her speech without giving an exact time frame.

Tourist arrivals from New Southbound countries are rising as the headcount from China decreases, official data show. The number of postsecondary students in Taiwan from New Southbound Policy countries went up 10 percent over the six months to March from a year earlier, while the number of non-degree university students from China has eased since mid-2016.

Taiwan’s Investment Commission last year approved 252 applications for projects intended for China last year, down 21.5 percent from 2015.

But China remains Taiwan’s top trading partner thanks to a thriving consumer market and the maturity of its supply chain for the likes of tech and machinery. Imports and exports totaled $117.9 billion in 2016.

Feedback from South and Southeast Asia

Indonesia has been a bright spot for finding new investment projects, especially in agriculture, an economic affairs official in Taipei said earlier in the year. Thailand had already approved 274 Taiwanese investment applications, worth $1.39 billion, from 2010 to 2015.

About 3,500 Taiwanese investors had invested in Vietnam as early as 2011 because costs were rising in China while Vietnam was offering incentives to lure foreign capital.

The restart in May of Taiwanese-owned Formosa Plastics Group’s Vietnam steel plant could draw a “cluster” of related Taiwanese firms, said Liang Kuo-yuan, president of Taipei-based think tank Polaris Research Institute in Taipei. Factory work had stopped over a suspected toxic leak that killed fish.

The Philippines, an investment-thirsty Southeast Asian archipelago, is actively looking for Taiwanese companies, said Jonathan Ravelas, chief market strategist with Banco de Oro UniBank in Metro Manila. Taiwanese electronics firms consider the country an export manufacturing base, he said, while healthcare firms may find partners such as hospitals. The growing consumer base lures others.

“We’re seeing entrepreneurs from Taiwan looking into the Philippines, given that it’s a very big retail market,” Ravelas said.

But one Southeast Asian country, Cambodia, may fear angering China by veering too close to Taiwan. Beijing forbids its allies from establishing formal ties with Taipei. In February Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen declared a ban on raising the Taiwan flag. Two years earlier the government forbid Taiwan from establishing an informal trade office.

Still early days

Similar go-south policies fell flat under former Taiwan president Lee Teng-hui in 1993 and his successor, Chen Shui-bian, after 2000. China in those years was cheaper, with less competition from local companies, in turn drawing Taiwanese investors.

Today’s policy will struggle as Taiwan faces competition in the 18 target counties from other foreign investment sources, Liang said. Competitors include China, India, Japan and South Korea. China and India were less competitive before 2000. Taiwan lacks a material advantage, he said.

“The biggest problem is that Southeast Asia is not a blue ocean market,” Liang said. “There are too many competitors, so Taiwan can’t just use its point of view to go compete in that market. Taiwan after all has what strength?”
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