Research and development spending in Taiwan’s manufacturing sector grew more than 5 percent annually from 2010 to 2019, with electronic component and optoelectronics makers accounting for almost 80 percent of the total last year.

R&D spending in the manufacturing sector topped the NT$500 billion (US$17.98 billion) mark for the first time in 2017 and reached NT$565.2 billion in 2019, compared with NT$361.3 billion in 2010, a Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) report said Monday.

In 2019 alone, the electronics component industry, including semiconductor suppliers, reported NT$306 billion in R&D spending, accounting for 54.1 percent of the total, and the computer and optoelectronics industry added another 24.3 percent.

The two sectors were the major sources of R&D spending in Taiwan’s manufacturing sector, accounting for 78.4 percent of the total, according to the report.

In terms of company R&D spending as a share of revenue, the figure hit 3.4 percent in 2019, the highest since 1997 and 1.2 percentage points above the 2010 level, the MOEA report said.

In 2019, the R&D spending ratio for companies in the computer and optoelectronics sector was the highest of any manufacturing sector at 11.4 percent.

That was followed by the medical and pharmaceutical sector (11.2 percent), the leather and fur industry (8.6 percent), and the electronic component industry (7.9 percent), the MOEA report found.

Companies with workforces of more than 200 accounted for 90.5 percent of all R&D spending in the manufacturing sector, up 3.6 percentage points from 2010, the report said.

Taiwan’s manufacturing sector remained a net technology importer, the MOEA report said, with the United States and Japan the top two suppliers.

In 2019, Taiwanese manufacturers spent NT$23.8 billion to buy technologies from the U.S., accounting for 37.6 percent of total purchases, and another NT$16.2 billion to buy technologies from Japan, accounting for 25.5 percent of the total, the MOEA report said.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel