Taiwan's Resources

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            One of the most important responsibilities of being named an economic analyst is always being aware of the four categories into which factors of production are grouped for many different countries. Those four categories are land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurship. Right now, we are going to discuss those four factors for Taiwan.

            Taiwan is a small island located off the southeastern coast of China, with very many resources. The first category we will be discussing, Land. Taiwan is known for their agriculture and has many natural resources that are used to create goods; natural resources such as coal, limestone, marble, natural gases, and asbestos. The country, as like many others, depends a lot on their exporting to their huge partners such as China, the U.S, and Japan. Our second category is Labor. For a country to strive, workers are needed with the appropriate knowledge, skills, and experience to make goods or services. Taiwan has a population of 22,974,347 million people, with an unemployment rate of 5.9 % which ranks them 53rd in comparison to the rest of the world. About 96.1 % of the population could read and write over the age of fifteen, which means as a country they are fairly literate and have had some form of proper schooling. The third category is Capital. As discussed throughout many economic classes capital is not defined by money, but by machines, factories, and other supplies that may be needed. Taiwan is known for their many industries such as textiles, machinery, electronics, vehicles, and food processing. Since the year 2009 Taiwan’s industrial production growth rate was estimated to be a -2% which isn’t horrible, but it does leave the country 90th in comparison to the rest of the world. Lastly, our fourth category is entrepreneurial ability. In Taiwan, on average it takes entrepreneurs on average about 23 days to start their own business. The financial sector is extremely competitive, and foreign ownership is very limited.

            Taiwan is prone to natural hazards such as earthquakes and typhoons. On March 3, 2010 a powerful 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck southern Taiwan leaving sixty four people injured. This was the largest quake to hit this region in over a century causing the rail service to be suspended and a large fire breaking out in a textile company. Natural disasters such as earthquakes can affect a countries production and infrastructure. The earthquake could damage roads, homes, textile buildings; it could ruin a whole economy.  Disasters like such require the government to spend large amounts of tax dollars on trying to fix damages, which could result in increasing taxes to help cover costs.    

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