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How to get in contact with Taiwan
During the European Innovation Week in Taiwan, the project team of SIlicon Europe Worldwide got to know interesting contact points in Taiwan.
Networking is essential in Asian economies. Relationships in Asia have to be established over a longer period of time than in Europe; Taiwanese people would not build a business relationship without any trust built upfront.
If you do not have any specific contact to Taiwan so far, it is worth contacting intermediate institutions such as clusters. It seems, yet, there are just few clusters in Taiwan as we know them in Europe. No Taiwanese network we met did call itself specifically ‘cluster’. However, there are other ‘cluster similar’ organisations which can be used as contact point for companies as these occupy the role of a cluster (uniting industrial, institutional as well as educational organisations, supporting national and international collaborations and externally representing a region, area of application or industry field). Taiwanese industrial organisations as well as associations such as the Taiwan Semiconductor Industry Association (TSIA) resemble the most what we call ‘cluster’ in Europe. We also met other industrial associations during a C2C in Taiwan:
- TAITRA: Taiwan External Trade Development Council
- TEEMA: Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers’ Association
- BOFT: Bureau of Foreign Trade
- SEMI: Association of the Semiconductor Industry
- TSIA: Taiwan Semicon Industry Association
- TAMI: Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry
- NTCA: New Taipei City Computer Association
- SIPA: System Integration promotion Alliance
- TAIROA: Taiwan Automation Intelligence and Robot Association
- CIECA: Chinese International Economic Cooperation Association
Moreover, the European Enterprise Network (EEN) is seen as a crucial node from Taiwanese side to collaborate with European organisations. The EEN is represented in Taiwan by three different organizations. It states on its website that the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) and the Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers’ Association (TEEMA) are the EEN contact points for Taiwan.[1] These are three of the Taiwanese organisation/associations mentioned above. Several of the project partners have also a tight collaboration to their local EEN office which facilitate fostering relationships to Taiwan.
Of course, you can also contact your local cluster office to get help approaching these institutions.
[1] Taiwanese representatives of EEN: http://een.ec.europa.eu/about/branches/tw00820, http://een.ec.europa.eu/about/branches/tw00818, http://een.ec.europa.eu/about/branches/tw00819