Taipei - Taiwan announced Wednesday a relaxation of its restrictions on the island's liquid-crystal-display and semiconductor makers investing in China, as cross-strait relations thaw. "Investments to be approved for building new thin-film transistor-LCD facilities on the mainland will be limited to just three plants," the Economic Ministry said in a statement.
Also, the level of technology involved must be lower than the more advanced sixth-generation technology now used by most TFT-LCD makers in Taiwan, the ministry said of the measure, which was approved by cabinet Wednesday.
The ministry also decided to allow Taiwan's semiconductor makers to invest in chip facility merger projects on the mainland and buy stakes in Chinese chipmakers. But the technologies at in the Chinese facilities in question must be at least two generations behind those of the Taiwanese investors, it noted.
Taiwan has banned key industries from investing in China, fearing that sophisticated technologies could be acquired by the mainland, once a bitter political rival since the two sides split at the end of a civil war in 1949.
Cross-strait relations have improved drastically since President Ma Ying-jeou of the China-friendly Nationalist Party took office in 2008 and adopted a policy to engage Beijing.
