Taipei, June 3 (CNA) Taiwan and Japan will join forces in developing the Internet of Things (IoT) to seek business opportunities in the region at a time when President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has launched the New Southbound Policy, according the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA).

In the third Taiwan-Japan Bilateral Smart Industry Summit held in Taipei on Friday, representatives from both countries voiced the need for cooperation on IoT development to explore the Southeast Asian market and even the global market.

The forum focused on Japan's efforts in IoT development which has broadened the range of applications from smart family to smart factory to smart merchants and even smart city, while Japan's IoT development has strengthened energy efficiency, the MOEA said.

Among the attendants to the forum were Presidential Advisor Ho Mei-yueh (何美玥), Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs (MOEA) Shen Jong-chin (沈榮津), Taipei Computer Association Chairman T.H. Tung (童子賢) and executives from Japan's electronics firms NEC, ROHM Semiconductor, Internet Initiative Japan (IIJ) and Taiwan's Kiwi Technology Inc. (奇邑科技).

Ho, who used to serve as the economics minister from 2004 to 2006, said that the MOEA during her tenure forged closer industrial cooperation between Taiwan and Japan, and both sides should now pay attention to putting their high-tech products in the market as soon as possible to take the lead over their peers, in particular in the IoT development.

The attendants agreed to take advantage of cooperation between Taiwan and Japan in this particular type of technology to seize any business opportunities when Taiwan is pushing its new southbound policy.

The initiative aims to forge closer economic ties between Taiwan and the 10 nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), along with South Asia, Australia and New Zealand, to lower economic dependence on China by diversifying investment and trade.

Shen said that Taiwan and Japan have built a sound foundation in high-tech cooperation and he will be happy to see the two countries team up in cloud-based technology, big data, artificial intelligence and the IoT by expanding their existing partnership model.

In addition, Taiwan has developed measures to achieve its goal of transforming the country into a Silicon Valley in Asia after Tsai took office in May 2016 so the country has ambitions to strengthen its capability in the Internet, the IoT and smart industry.

At the forum, representatives from IIJ and NEC said that a single company is unlikely to meet the demands in the fast growing IoT market so enterprises in Taiwan and Japan should work together to cater to customers.

They said that the two sides should target the Southeast Asian market initially and then set their sights on the global market. 

(By Huang Li-yun and Frances Huang)
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