Taipei, Dec. 2 (CNA) Economic Affairs Minister John Deng (鄧振中) said Wednesday that his ministry welcomes all investments in Taiwan, and stressed that if Facebook were to invest in a data center in the country it would not have to worry about electricity.

Deng was responding to a pledge by Changhua County Magistrate Wei Ming-ku (魏明谷) to solve power and water supply problems for the social networking site after it was reported that Facebook was evaluating a potential site in the county for the data center.

Though he guaranteed a stable supply of electricity for any Facebook facility, Deng said he believed the company, which values protecting the environment and reducing emissions, will also take plenty of energy-saving steps.

Deng pointed to the many advantages Taiwan has in attracting international Internet giants, such as high-quality manpower and an established legal framework for intellectual property protection.

Those advantages, he said, have already appealed to Google, which invested US$600 million to set up a data center in the Changhua Coastal Industrial Park (彰濱工業區) in 2013.

But to attract additional information technology investment, Deng suggested that a more complete intellectual property protection system was needed and that academia and industry should join hands to develop more highly qualified professionals. 

(By C.W. Huang and Lillian Lin)
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