Abstract

According to the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting, and Statistics (DGBAS), Taiwan's gross domestic product (GDP) increased by 3.17% in 2H19, which is higher than the anticipated full-year GDP growth of 2.71% for 2019. This is due to the ongoing U.S.–China trade war that has led to the return of Taiwanese organizations into the country.

IT investments have significantly dropped in early 2020 because of the COVID-19 outbreak, in which sectors such as manufacturing, retail, tourism, and aviation have been drastically hindered by the global pandemic. The Taiwan government has launched several initiatives to counter this crisis, such as allocating TWD14.2 billion to the tourism and transportation sectors to cushion the sectors’ declining performances and provide resources to increase manufacturing production and prevent medical mask shortages.

IDC believes that IT spending for the banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) and public sectors will increase, whereas the manufacturing industry will be negatively impacted as follows:

• BFSI. The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) has required financial services institutions (FSIs) that have assets over TWD1 trillion to build a dedicated security team for security policy making, incident monitoring, and response. The regulatory is expected to necessitate investments in cybersecurity-related capabilities on both technology and professional services, which, in turn, would spur the growth of the security managed service market.
• Public. The Taiwan government will replace the country’s existing identification (ID) cards at the end of 2020, after an infrastructure that supports the new eID was built in 2H19. At the same time, local governments have also adopted the new system required to provide innovation and a convenient application method to the citizens.
• Manufacturing. The manufacturing sector in Taiwan will be negatively impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak because of the shortages in resources and materials to keep up with the existing market demand. This means IT spending will be affected negatively as manufacturers are focusing their resources toward business continuity plans rather than IT projects/investments.

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