 Welcome to Asia Review. I'm your host Bill Sharp. My guest today is Ms. Andrea Wu, President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Taiwan. Ms. Wu is a highly respected business leader who was General Manager for United Airlines Taiwan before assuming her position at the Chamber. She has high-level contacts with officials and business leaders in both Taiwan and the U.S. Today we're going to ask her to bring us up to date on the business environment in Taiwan, especially in the aftermath of the U.S. pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Welcome to Asia Review. It's great to have you back with us again. Good afternoon, Bill. How are you? I'm just fine. Thank you. Well, let's kind of get right into it here. A lot of our viewers might not be that familiar with the American Chamber in Taiwan. So could you give us sort of a synopsis of what the Chamber's mission is? Sure. Our mission is really to foster the growth and the development of the investment and trade between U.S. and Taiwan. And we also like to bring the international practice and standards to Taiwan economy to make Taiwan a part of a very valuable international players. Well, can you give us some specific ways in which the Chamber assists U.S. businesses? Sure. I think to start, annually we always do an annual business climate survey to take the pause of how our member companies consider this business environment in Taiwan. So we just released that publication in February for 2017's business climate survey. More than half of the companies are telling us that they're very happy with the environment here and they are considering increasing their hiring and also investment. So that is really a good sign. But also I think there are concerning points that like the cross-strait and also regulatory practice and laws. The third one is how we recently just amended the labor law lacking of the clarity. So I think we took, we hosted a press conference and share all those points good and bad with the Taiwan government and the general public which attracted a lot of attention and discussion. That's one. And then also for President Tsai, who has set up a five pillar for the, as a priority for her economic growth since last year when she took the office. So AmChan really organized a lot of meetings, discussions, briefings in some of those areas, namely Green Energy, Biotech, and also Asian Silicon Valley. So we're in discussions and collaborations with the Taiwan government matching our company's expertise and resources in these areas. You know, you mentioned something about labor law. There's been a lot of discussion in Taiwan the last, oh, I'd say six months or so, about the change in labor standards. And has that impacted U.S. businesses in Taiwan? In a way, I think, and the Taiwanese company alike, because the new labor laws really requiring employees to document their working hours and the overtime, it's, I think, nowadays the business is running 24 hours or globally. If I heard you right, it sounds like there's not going to be that much of an impact on American businesses. Did I get that right? No, I think it will have some impact because American business or foreign business now working globally. So there's a lot of conference calls. There's a lot of activities you actually not conducted in the office environment. So if the law requires you really to clock in and out, then that's a little difficult. So there's a lot of implementation details that the government is still working on. So we're very patiently knowing that Taiwan government already here from everybody, and they will make that best consideration, I believe. That's good, because that has really caused a lot of discussion in Taiwan, this change in labor law. Is it taming down now? Is it sort of quieting down? It's quieting down, but I think now the business is offering a lot of input. Before that was from the labor side, now it's more from the business side. So I think the Taiwan government's goal is to strike the balance and find the best solution for both sides. Wow, that's incredible. Yeah, well now let me see that you have the doorknob campaign coming up, correct? Right. So for the benefit of our viewers, tell them how that works. Okay, this year our schedule, we will schedule the last week of June. We just made a decision, so the preparation will start this week. According to our past practice, usually this is one week long trip in D.C., and we will visit many different offices. In the past 10 years, average meetings that we conducted in that week, it's 45 average in 45 meetings, so it's a very intense week. Wow, 45 meetings in one week, that's incredible. How long is each meeting? On the average? 30 minutes the most, plus the commuting time, so it's really very intense. Sometimes starting from breakfast meeting all the way to evening hours. But we will visit administration, including State Department, Commerce, USTR, NSC, and another half of the meetings split by Senate and House, also the relevant major think tankers. So it's a very productive week, I would say. Good luck at USTR. I don't personally feel USTR has always been as friendly as they could be to Taiwan. I think they've been a little bit too strict at times, and I don't think I'm the only one who holds that view. Thank you. So good luck, good luck. We will take the good wish to Washington. So okay, now the Trump administration came in the office, and one of the first things they did was pull the US out of TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. And I think our viewers probably know that this was supposed to be a very broad free trade agreement that Taiwan was really banking pretty heavily on joining, if not right away, then in the second round. So what's the impact been in Taiwan? Is that really upset things quite a bit? Are companies adjusting, getting over the frustration? What's the impact? I think, to say the least, it's pretty disappointing because both US and many other countries spend a lot of time. Businesses are adjusting then to this US withdrawal from TPP? Yes, but we're really hoping that Taiwan can be part of TPP, also because in that sense that Taiwan can be part of this international trade pact and also operating with the international standards. So I think now it's going back to a bilateral setting. So for US and Taiwan, MChem is supporting if there is a possibility we would like to advocate for a FTA between US and Taiwan. Now I know that Tsai Ing-Wen was your, I would call her the guest of honor at your March 22nd annual American Chamber of Commerce dinner, and at that time she really pushed hard for a bilateral investment agreement. Is that correct? I think we talked about the bilateral trade agreement. We didn't really give the name of whether it's a bilateral investment or it's a FTA, but it's a bilateral trade agreement. So we welcome. I think it's very important for US and Taiwan to have a formal agreement. So MChem will welcome any of the bilateral trade agreement existence. I agree. I've always supported Taiwan's participation in TPP and it's hoped to have a BIA, a bilateral investment agreement with the United States. We're going to hope for the best. Speaking of President Tsai, what's your impression of her? What's your take on her? I think she's very insightful and she was prepared before she took this position. Prepared meaning I knew in the past four years that she visited a lot of companies and really tried to get down to learn what the business requirements are and she has her ideology. I think she was well prepared. There's political realities in any countries. So when you try to do reforms, that's always difficult. And when you're changing policies, you face different voices. So I think she's just experiencing a lot of things that many leaders in the world has to experience right now. Whatever problems she's incurring, she seems to be, according to Fortune magazine, a very highly rated global leader. She came in eighth, even ahead of Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany who gets kudos from everywhere all the time it seems. I thought that was very impressive. They said the reason that Fortune rated her so high is because of the economic reforms that she was trying to institute. She gets higher marks in publications like Fortune than she does support from the Taiwan electorate. And I realized that she's trying to take on a lot of problems that are very complicated and very complex and some of which the nationalist party probably should have tried to solve and it was a party, power like pension reform and that sort of thing. But globally she seems to be taking on quite a reputation. What's your take on that? You've had the opportunity to sit there and talk to her, I'm sure. What insight do you have on that? I think from my observation she does spend a lot of energy and resources to really address the difficult issues, meaning all those pension or labor issues. That's her part of her campaign commitment. So I think she needs to really get down to business and want to deliver her promises. Of course it creates problems for her administration and her cabinet and herself. It's very courageous in that sense. I hope she will be successful because many of them are longstanding issues that the country has to find a solution very soon to put those things behind us. Although maybe it is somewhat of an economic problem but maybe not typically thought of as purely economic and that's transitional justice and of course that's a huge, very complex problem and she's dealing with that too. Pension reform, transitional justice, dealing with the mainland. She's really got quite a playful. As a business entity we're also hoping that the same degree of attention will also put it in to improve this business environment in Taiwan instead of only the social justice issues. What's the biggest thing you'd like to see done for improving the business environment in Taiwan? Well I think to start she has set up very good five pillars, the five directions for her economic growth plan. If we can see the good progress and good strategies put in place for that we'll be very happy. Because MChem is committed and ready to work with Taiwan government in some of those areas that we can put our contribute to the local economy. That sort of brings me back to this $29 billion stimulus package that was just announced. It's supposed to create 40,000 to 50,000 jobs and I suppose those will be fairly good jobs and it's supposed to even out this distribution between urban areas and the rural areas and it's supposed to increase the economy at the 2% this year which might not sound like a lot but based on Taiwan's economy in the last few years that's quite an improvement. I know you don't have many details about the stimulus package yet but 40,000 to 50,000 jobs my impression is those are going to be in infrastructure development but I'm not sure if that's correct. That's correct. That's why our infrastructure committee will get very busy this year. Okay so yeah the stimulus package does sound pretty good to me. I know that the government in the past and the Ma era invested money in different industries and tried to really get them to take off and I'm not really sure that that happened but this stimulus package sounds like a good idea. You know there's something, during the Ma era there were these things called the free pilot zones that the government came up with and now I don't hear anything about those at all. Have they totally disappeared? If you're referring to the economic pilot zone yes I think that project is gone. I think within the party or within the legislative unit didn't shore up the support in that project so right now we have a new government taking place so they probably will come up with a different plan such as the five pillars and the stimulus construction program so I think that's a replaced by yes. The short answer is that initiative is gone. It seems there was a lot of criticism about the free pilot zones because as I understood it the criticism suggested that this is too easy of a way for Chinese mainland money to come into Taiwan and so a lot of people were upset with it. Well Chinese I think the concern about Chinese money or Chinese influence is always a major reason when they look at any investment deals so I think but it's difficult it's a dilemma that you cannot always block Chinese investment or people outside of the island because just like any other countries they all have to work with China such a major power, economic power so I think it's a dilemma that Taiwan really have to find a workable solution to live with it. Interesting, really really interesting. Well we're getting down here to about our last minute or so I don't know is there anything that you would like to talk about or anything that you would like to add any thing you'd like to pass on to our audience? Yes I think we also would like to we also encouraging Taiwanese companies going into US to invest so through this initiative of SelectUSA I think Taiwan has done really well in the last three years they always ranked top three biggest delegation countries and they truly have committed with a major investment in the state so we encourage Taiwan continues to do that and investing the states and creating jobs in America for the partnership and cooperation between the two economies. It does seem like the number of Taiwan funded jobs of US continues to grow as we speak. Well that's about all the time we have today the unmerciful clock has caught up to us again and I want to thank Ms. Wu for joining us my guest next week will be Dr. Michael Liu Dr. Liu is the Deputy Director of the Institute for Taiwan History at Academia Seneca in Taiwan We'll see you then.