Go Taiwan!

Just came across these remarkable stats. Taiwan is number 1 or number 2 in the following industries:

#1 Provider of chip foundry services, with 70% of the world market worth $8.9 billion

#1 Provider of notebook PCs, with 72% of the world market worth $22 billion

#1 Provider of LCD monitors, with 68% of the world market worth $14 billion

#2 Provider of servers, with 33% of the world market worth $1.8 billion

#2 Provider of digital still cameras, with 34% of the world market worth $2 billion

#1 Provider of PDAs, with 79% of the world market worth $1.8 billion

Pretty darned impressive, I'd say.

And here's an interesting table I found at businessweek.com which compares Taiwan's and the PRC's basic economic data.


I wonder what the U.K.'s per capita GDP is. It can't be much higher than Taiwan's - might even be lower! OK, I just checked. The CIA World Factbook says that UK per capita GDP (purchasing power parity, whatever that means) in 2004 was $29,600. But hang on a minute - it says that per capita GDP for Taiwan was $25,300 in 2004. Not that far behind the UK. But when it comes to reserves of foreign exchange and gold, Taiwan blows the UK out of the water: $246.5 billion compared to $48.73 billion.

Interesting to note that 17% of Britons are below the poverty line compared to only 1% in Taiwan. A huge difference. Unemployment is almost the same at just under 5%.