Taiwan Business Confidence Survey: 74% Optimistic, Finance & Electronics Leading, Semiconductor at Bottom

The inaugural New Taiwan Business Global Expansion Confidence Index has been released, showing that 74% of surveyed companies express confidence in overseas investment, yet fewer than 10% report being highly confident. Amid the wave of artificial intelligence driving what may be the largest and most complex overseas migration in history, Taiwanese businesses face significant real-world hurdles upon implementation. Over half of the companies plan to maintain current investment levels or remain观望 over the next 12 months, reflecting an overall optimistic yet cautious approach.

By industry, financial insurance and electronics/information and communications technology (ICT) lead in expansion confidence, while the semiconductor sector ranks at the bottom.

Conducted by Business Weekly and KPMG An侯 Jian Ye, the survey covers multinational Taiwanese firms with a combined capital of nearly NT$1.3 trillion, operating across five major markets: the United States, China, ASEAN, the European Union, and Japan. In terms of industry performance, financial insurance and electronics/ICT benefit from capital and supply chain restructuring, leading in confidence. The financial sector shows the strongest confidence in the U.S. market.

Conversely, the semiconductor industry, characterized by high capital expenditure and geopolitical sensitivity, scored the lowest among nine major industries, indicating a relatively conservative outlook.

Regarding the U.S. market, 82% of companies believe demand is strong enough to support expansion, and 94% explicitly state it is not a short-term trend. However, only 3% express high confidence in entering the U.S. While government-backed overseas financing credit guarantee programs assist with capital access, the key bottleneck remains talent. Labor costs and talent acquisition rank as the top two barriers in the U.S., exceeding the overall market average by 10 to 20 percentage points, making it the highest threshold.

China presents a paradoxical situation: people are manageable, but capital is hard to move. Organizational management is the only area where China outperforms the other four markets, while confidence in capital flow, geopolitical risks, and profitability amid local competition ranks last. Only 25% of companies express confidence in smooth capital movement, and many Taiwanese firms remaining in China have shifted their mindset from seeking high margins to merely achieving minimal profits through economies of scale.

In contrast, ASEAN leads in overall confidence across the five markets, topping in policy incentives and becoming the top choice for the 'China+1' strategy. However, the demographic dividend is nearing its end, placing traditional industries under pressure to transform. Japan ranks first in regulatory stability and infrastructure, but workplace culture and language barriers result in low confidence, placing it at the bottom alongside the EU. The EU shows the highest market demand potential, but complex regulations and tax systems across 27 countries, coupled with high labor costs, make governance the most challenging of all markets.