China Focus: Taiwan entrepreneurs tap new opportunities in mainland

XIAMEN -- Taiwan entrepreneurs attending the 15th Straits Forum have expressed confidence in tapping new business opportunities in the Chinese mainland, where technological innovation empowers the development of many emerging sectors.

This year's forum attracted over 5,000 guests from Taiwan, including many businesspeople, with economic exchanges as the main theme.

Li Ming-Hui, assistant to the president of Lihpao Biotechnology Co Ltd, attended the forum for the seventh time. "It is a good platform for people across the Strait to communicate with each other. More importantly, we always gain more confidence from the forum," Li said.

When Lihpao, a Taiwan-invested gene sequencing firm, entered the Chinese mainland market in 2016, its executives found it was still a "blue ocean" in the field of precision medicine, where competition was not intense.

"Having been operating in Taiwan for over ten years, our company wanted to bring our technologies and good services to the mainland," Li said.

Li said the company invested about $11 million in the mainland market and will continue to increase its investment, as the mainland offers a favorable business environment and huge growth potential.

"We are optimistic about the mainland's economic development," said Li. "We hope to integrate deeper into the local market and cooperate with local enterprises to expand our presence."

Taiwan entrepreneur Hsu Guan-Sheng is a veteran of artificial intelligence (AI). After establishing an AI development association in Taiwan in 2018, Hsu landed his project in Xiamen city a year later to embrace the massive market.

In Hsu's opinion, the development of AI in the mainland has been driven by many significant advantages, such as a huge market, a vast amount of data available, and many skilled people in the sector.

"Therefore, the AI industry in the mainland is currently one of the fastest-growing and most diverse markets in the world," Hsu said.

In the past three years, Hsu's company successfully developed AI-driven mobile robots and launched projects on digital human and metaverse fitness.

Hsu said the mainland is an optimal place for people from Taiwan to start a business, as preferential policies offered by many local governments, including housing subsidies, office subsidies, and start-up funds, can alleviate the burden of starting a business.

"I hope more young people in Taiwan with the ambition of starting a business will come to the mainland," Hsu said.