RIYADH, 10 October 2005 — Taiwan, ranked fourth globally in terms of competitiveness, has offered to cooperate with the Kingdom in raising the level of productivity, with the country expected to join the World Trade Organization (WTO) at its upcoming session in Hong Kong in December.
“We have the expertise and the know-how and would be happy to share it with our friends in Saudi Arabia,” Taipei’s Economic & Cultural Representative Yang Sheng tsung, told Arab News on the occasion of the Double Ten Festival.
In a wide-ranging interview, the representative discussed the scope for cooperation in various fields, including raising the level of productivity, bilateral trade and investment as well as manpower training.
Productivity as a key element in boosting production is set to assume a new dimension once the Kingdom’s accession to the WTO further opens up its economy to global competition. Surprisingly, its importance in this regard has yet to be recognized, as Shoura Council member Osama Al-Kurdi himself acknowledged in an interview with Arab News.
An idea of the low level of productivity in the Arab world could be gauged from the findings of a survey reported by Al Ahram. The survey, that covered government employees in Cairo, showed that an Egyptian government servant, on an average, works 27 minutes out of eight hours. He wastes most of his time taking and making phone calls, socializing, sipping tea, disappearing over an extended time for prayers. According to a Web survey conducted by America Online and Salary.com, the average US worker admits to frittering away 2.09 hours per day, excluding the lunch time. All this boils down to a cumulative loss of $759 billion on salaries for which companies receive no apparent benefit.
Speaking in this context, Representative Yang said Taiwan’s National Productivity Council plays a crucial role in letting the manpower benefit from its information technology, in which it is a major player at the international level.
He explained how private sector firms rationalize rewards for employees’ effort and make them feel that they are integral to the company’s success. “They carry out an individual Performance Reward System for all levels of employees, while bonuses are disbursed as a reward to an employee in proportion to his performance,” he observed.
Representative Yang said a shining example in this context is Chinese Petroleum Corp. (CPC) whose sales of natural gas last year amounted to 9.01 billion cubic meters, an increase of 17 percent over the previous year. Of the total volume, 78.8 percent was supplied for power generation, 1.6 percent for cogeneration, 9.3 percent for industrial use, and 13.3 percent for household use.
Imports of LNG last year totaled 6.86 million tons, of which 3.97 million tons were supplied by Indonesia, 2.77 million tons by Malaysia, and the remaining 120,000 tons by British Petroleum under a master agreement.
Describing Saudi-Taiwanese relations as strong and diversified, Yang said the bilateral trade shot up by 30 percent in the first half of this year against the corresponding period last year. The trade volume reached $6 billion last year.
He said Taiwan’s trade mission concluded deals worth around $15 million during its four-day visit to Riyadh and Jeddah on Sept. 24. Elaborating on his remarks, W.K. Lai, economic counselor, said the growing interest in Taiwan was also underlined by the recent visit of the multidisciplinary trade mission, which received a large number of inquiries, especially for paper-making machinery required for the production of cartons and tissue paper.
Although these items are manufactured locally, a substantial quantity is imported from the UAE, indicating a good potential for the import substitution business. In this context, he mentioned that Taiwan could supply a full range of machinery for facial tissue, paper napkins, pocket facial tissue, and toilet paper, besides machinery for textiles production.
He said the high level of interest could be evaluated by the fact that around 800 companies and individuals visited the road show in Riyadh and Jeddah, thanks to an aggressive advertising campaign launched by the economic section of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office.
Representative Yang said that besides the surge in bilateral trade, Taiwan had also provided advanced training for more than 350 Saudi technicians or experts within the past three years. “It is our sincere wish that this partnership will keep moving forward in the future, and the relation and friendship between Taiwan and the Kingdom will be further strengthened,” he said at a gathering of diplomats and invitees assembled on the occasion of the Double Ten Festival.
According to him, Taiwan, which is particularly strong in the IT sector, looks forward to greater cooperation with the Kingdom in this field. He mentioned that the Hsinchu Industrial Science Park netted a revenue of $34.4 billion from IT products alone, constituting 10.8 percent of Taiwan’s GNP, which stood at $348 billion last year.
“Taiwan is No. 1 in the IT sector, especially in the manufacture of LCD monitors and other computer accessories,” he said, adding that Saudi businessmen are exploring the possibility of technology transfer in this sector, besides a petrochemical joint venture.