In its seventh annual Business Climate Survey, completed in late 2016, AmCham Taipei invited 412 voting representatives (usually the top executive) of the Chamber’s member companies to answer a series of questions about the business environment in an online questionnaire. In conducting the survey and analyzing the data, the Chamber was grateful for the professional guidance of Independent Marketing & Research.

In the surveys conducted over the past seven years, we have intentionally asked our business leaders the same, or nearly the same, set of questions. As a result, we have been able to track the degree of progress – or the lack thereof – across key issues over that period.

This year, the results indicate that most respondents’ businesses performed well financially in 2016 and remain bullish about investing in Taiwan over the next five years. At the same time, the relative optimism was tempered by suggestions that Taiwan is falling short of its potential, and that business performance would benefit significantly from improvement in several key areas, especially government regulatory practices and policies, as well as cross-Strait relations. It is particularly worth noting that “lack of clarity in labor laws” – a problem cited in the Survey for the first time – was selected as one of the top three factors both in terms of the factors having the most impact on the respondents’ businesses and as an area in which the least progress has been made…