Browsing: Taiwan Singapore relations

Singapore has become an increasingly important source of Taiwan’s overall trade surplus. In 2022, Taiwan’s surplus with Singapore accounted for more than 33% of Taiwan’s total trade surplus, and it remained close to 30% in 2024. Although the share was 17.5% in 2025, it rose again to 21.9% in January–February 2026, meaning that more than one-fifth of Taiwan’s total trade surplus now comes from Singapore.

Data from the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) indicate that Singapore produces about 10% of the world’s semiconductors and manufactures roughly 20% of global semiconductor equipment.

Stronger penalties and institutional innovation can raise costs and slow damage. But the long-term solution lies in deeper cross-border cooperation, continued advancement in financial technology, and enhanced digital literacy among the public.

According to the latest statistics, from the law’s implementation through early February 2026, police issued 12 Restriction Orders to banks, buying critical intervention time for affected individuals. The proportion of victims who “voluntarily transferred funds to scammers” declined slightly from 82.4% in 2024 to 81.8% in 2025, suggesting that the long-term effectiveness of “protective intervention” warrants continued observation.

Strategically, Singapore has chosen a pragmatic and clear-eyed path. The Prime Minister acknowledged that Singapore lacks the scale to compete with major powers such as the United States and China in developing foundational AI models. Instead, its comparative advantage lies in deploying AI “effectively, responsibly, and swiftly.” This declaration signals that Singapore has no intention of entering an arms race in model development. Rather, it aims to position itself as a global hub and testing ground for AI solutions. Instead of pursuing scale for its own sake, the country seeks to excel in application efficiency and systems integration.

By Dr. TUNG Chen-Yuan, Taiwan’s Representative to Singapore – AI image for illustrative purposes only. In Singapore, health is no longer…

Singapore’s Online Criminal Harms Act empowers the government to issue legally binding directives to major online platforms, requiring them to remove accounts, block content, or even restrict applications. As digital platforms have become primary arenas for criminal activity, platform operators are now expected to assume gatekeeping responsibilities rather than claim technological neutrality.

Taiwan’s investment in non-China destinations has continued to rise. In 2016, investment in non-China regions surpassed investment in China for the first time, marking a key turning point. By 2022, the share had further increased to 66.4%. In 2025, investment in non-China regions accounted for as much as 96.2% of Taiwan’s total outward investment—around 12 times the level invested in China—demonstrating a highly diversified and multi-pronged outward investment pattern.

Taiwan became Singapore’s largest merchandise trading partner in 2025, surpassing China and Malaysia. Notably, just one year earlier in 2024, Taiwan ranked only fourth. This sharp rise does not reflect a short-term anomaly, but rather the combined outcome of supply chain realignments and structural changes in trade patterns.

A major conflict in the Taiwan Strait could inflict losses of up to US$10 trillion on the global economy—roughly 10% of global GDP. The scale of such a shock could surpass the total economic cost of the three years of the COVID-19 pandemic.