Taiwan is to relax controls on investments from mainland China in the island's high-tech companies, a senior economic official said Sunday. The move is yet another sign of fast-warming ties with Beijing. According to the state Central News Agency, Chinese companies will be allowed to own up to 10 percent of individual semiconductor and flat-screen manufacturing companies.
Chinese companies will also be permitted to own up to 49 percent of subsidiaries controlled by the high-tech firms. "The proposal to ease the restrictions on investments by Chinese businesses have been approved by the Executive Yuan (Taiwan's Cabinet)," deputy economic minister Lin Sheng-chung told AFP.
"It is due to be announced in the next few days," Lin said, declining to provide details.
Taiwan in June 2009 partially lifted a decades-old ban on investment in the island by Chinese companies or individuals amid rapidly improving ties following the election of Beijing-friendly Ma Ying-jeou as president in 2008.
Despite the opening, accumulated Chinese investment streams to Taiwan are less than one thousandth the money going in the other direction.