Taiwan Untapped Human Assets - As published by The China Post

Three years have passed since my graduation from NCCU’s IMBA program. During those years, due to my involvement in alumni associations, I have become familiar with the questions that most international MBA graduates from Taiwanese universities face upon graduation. These young graduates usually possess technical expertise, pre-MBA work experience and, after their Taiwan adventure, multilingual/multicultural proficiency, a characteristic that alone would make them quite competitive in their local labor markets. Most of them decide to stay in the Taiwan for a couple of years before returning home, due to the cultural and legal barriers in Taiwan’s labor market, few succeed, but those who do, usually stay much longer than a couple of years.

The amount of Anglo and Latin American, European and East Asian talent already residing in Formosa that is willing to contribute to the local economy, is worth of consideration. The world is becoming flat, many Taiwanese talent leaves the island looking for greener pastures in the US and Europe, and some never come back. This situation is not necessarily negative for Taiwan, but measures should be taken in order to balance it by easing the access of Taiwanese companies to the global talent pool already residing here.

Taiwan might not be known as a magnet of international talent as other Asian countries are, but Taiwan does become a magnet at the time you get close enough to experience it. Taiwan already possesses many conditions suitable for attracting global talent, quality of life, convenience, safety and a relative lower cost of living vis-à-vis other East-Asian destinations. Taiwanese society is also less monolithic than other Asian societies, as Japan or Korea, and thus is easier to fit-in, this makes the island very suitable for becoming a cosmopolitan, multicultural and democratic oasis.

Easing the integration of international talent to the local economy will bring handsome benefits to Taiwan. In the short run, by helping to gain better knowledge of foreign markets, but most importantly in the long run, since being able to formulate a problem from different perspectives is key to innovation. The new regulations for Alien Resident Certificate Holders that were adopted last April 22 are a very welcomed milestone on this respect, but there is plenty of room for improvement. For example: Relaxing work experience requirements for college graduates of foreign universities when applying for work permits, and easing investment requirements to foreign resident entrepreneurs. [Note: Measures were taken on both of these aspects during 2015] 

Educational strategies such as aiming for full national bilingualism, English-Chinese, in one generation (an attainable goal nowadays thanks to technology assisted education) would as well reap great benefits in regard to competitiveness, and might be easier to implement in Taiwan than in other countries that have envisioned similar goals (http://www.mineducacion.gov.co/1621/article-97495.html)

A cosmopolitan society would mean, not only, more knowledge and ideas flowing through Taiwanese enterprises, and thus exponential growth of innovation and competitiveness; it would mean as well, international visibility and relevance, two elusive objectives of Taiwanese diplomacy in the midst of the island’s sui-generis geopolitical status. A Taiwan open to the world, means in short, a world open to Taiwan.