Developing key components and products in Taiwan

Abstract

Taiwan's technology-intensive industries rely heavily on imported key components and products, particularly those from Japan. Taiwan government officials are actively promoting programmes to develop these components locally. The programmes target components and products critical to Taiwan's industries that have high added-value and are difficult to acquire, and classify them according to the work yet to be done to bring them to the investment for production stage. Development strategies are formed according to the stage the target item is in so that government and private resources can be combined to accelerate changes to current status, obtain investment for production to enhance industry competitiveness and independence, and to eventually reduce the number of key components and products imported from Japan. This paper describes the model for developing key components and products in Taiwan, including how key components and products are selected, analysed and developed. Cases showing development of dynamic random-access memory chips and gasoline engines for automobiles in Taiwan are also described in detail.