The Ministry of Economic Affairs recently announced that 42 additional industry areas will be open to investment from China, including the local TFT-LCD panel and semiconductor industries, but Chinese investors will not be allowed to hold controlling stakes in any of the Taiwan-based companies.

Minister Shih of the Ministry of Economic Affairs explained the Ministrys latest release of items, which the government is allowing Chinese to invest in.

There are 25 items for the manufacturing sector, 8 items for service sector, 9 items for public construction sector, which is more than the rumored 30 items that people speculated, especially in the IC industry, which stressed the cross strait industries cooperation.

According to the MOEA, including with the IC industry, semi-conductor, panel and others are allowed to have 10 to 20% of Chinese investment, and total combines investment amount of 50%.

In public construction sector, civil aeronautic buildings maintenance is now opened, but not suitable for airports serving the military and the public.

It is a way to control technical skills and control fund from Taiwan.

Scholars believe the new measure will attract more fund from China to invest in Taiwan, which, Taiwan can take advantage of the situation and elevate its competitiveness.

The MOEA stressed that; the Executive yuan has already passed the new measure and will start taking applications next week, with each application taking at least 4 months to review.

It is estimated that more fund will invest in Taiwan from China as the MOEA is going to start discussing the next wave of list of items to allow Chinese to invest in after the second wave of list kicked off.