Taiwan’s exports in recent years have been concentrated in specific technology industries, causing many people to worry that excessive concentration of Taiwan’s exports may harm Taiwan’s economy. On January 28, 2021, the Central Bank released the "Summary of the Proceedings of the Central Bank Governors and Supervisors Meeting" for the fourth quarter of 2020, stating that a director believes that Taiwan's current trade surplus continues to expand due to booming exports of semiconductors and information and communication industries, which has led to a strong appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar, but is detrimental to other industries. He is worried that this situation is somewhat similar to the background of the "Dutch Disease" that year.
Since then, whenever Taiwan's exports have continued to increase, some scholars have warned that Taiwan may suffer from the "Dutch Disease" problem. However, it is unreasonable to interpret industries with export advantages as "Dutch disease".
Either exports are concentrated in specific industries or it is the "Dutch Disease"First of all, according to the Ministry of Finance’s 2025 8 The "Preliminary Customs Import and Export Trade Statistics" in March showed that the export proportion of "electronic and information communication products" combined "electronic components" and "information communication and audio-visual products" increased from 44.1% in 2016 to 72% in August 2025. Among them, the export share of "information communication and audio-visual products", which is considered to be suspected of "Dutch disease", increased from 10.8% in 2016 to 37.5% in August this year. Exports of "electronic components" accounted for 33.2% in 2016. If the "Dutch Disease" is something to worry about, why would it only occur when the proportion of exports of information communications and audio-visual products increases, and not in industries with export advantages such as electronic components and the textile industry in the past? This is something that public opinion interprets Taiwan's increase in exports of specific industries as Dutch disease, which has never been explained.
(Source: Ministry of Finance)
(Source: CPT, the same below)
Secondly, the main reason for the increase in my country's exports of "Information and Audiovisual Products" is that the United States imposed additional tariffs on China and implemented strict technology export controls, which caused many Taiwanese businessmen to return to Taiwan to invest. Therefore, products that originally needed to be exported to China for assembly were instead assembled in Taiwan and exported directly to the United States. This is the main reason why my country's trade surplus with the United States will increase significantly. When Taiwanese businessmen return to Taiwan to invest, new job opportunities and new market demand will gradually increase, which should be a good thing for Taiwan. This is completely different from the past when the Netherlands moved resources to the energy sector due to rising energy prices.
More importantly, Taiwan’s increase in exports is not an opportunity brought about by a short-term rise in energy prices, but the result of long-term R&D and manufacturing efforts by Taiwanese manufacturers in the semiconductor field. It has also driven a large number of supply chain manufacturers and jobs. It is completely unreasonable to interpret Taiwan’s industry’s monopoly as the “Dutch Disease”. If Taiwan's chip R&D and manufacturing capabilities will cause Dutch disease in Taiwan, the U.S., Japanese and German governments should stop attracting investment from major Taiwanese manufacturers.
The "price competitiveness" of Chinese products is the main reason for the continued decline in exports of some Taiwanese industries.Furthermore, it is an indisputable fact that the gap in Taiwan's industrial development has gradually widened in recent years. However, if these scholars want the government to improve the trend of the widening gap in industrial development, they should not one-sidedly believe that the growth of a single industry is the reason for the expansion of industrial development. Instead, they should examine why other industries cannot continue to grow or even decline.
In fact, the exports of other industries including "basic metals and their products", "machinery", "plastics, rubber and their products", "chemicals", etc. have all faced the dilemma of overproduction and low-price competition in China's industries in recent years. "Exchange rate" is no longer an important reason why these industries facing overproduction problems are unable to compete or their exports have decreased.
Therefore, if we are worried about Taiwan's industry being overly concentrated in specific industries and facing the "Dutch disease", the "China disease" of continued low-price dumping is even more worrying. This is also the reason why the United States and the European Union have imposed anti-dumping duties and countervailing duties on Chinese products in recent years.
Finally, Taiwan is a country with scarce natural resources. The export competitiveness of Taiwan’s industry is formed by the interaction between the introduction of foreign technical knowledge and the accumulation of human capital, thereby improving the productivity of the industry. If one-sided distortion of the increase in Taiwan’s industrial productivity is the cause of the appreciation of the national currency relative to the US dollar, it will completely ignore the positive help that manufacturers can have on supply chain manufacturers and the national economic influence through improved industrial competitiveness.
In addition, if the only concern is that too much export of a specific industry will lead to an appreciation of the exchange rate, which will be detrimental to the export of other industries, then the "Dutch disease" theory still remains in the thinking that the government should depreciate the national currency to maintain export competitiveness. On the one hand, this statement misunderstands that the exchange rate can be fixed; on the other hand, it also believes that devaluation can increase the exports of Taiwanese industries. If the statement that Taiwan's industrial development has suffered from the "Dutch Disease" problem is correct, then Taiwan's advanced semiconductor industry will not become a battleground for geopolitical strategists.
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