A growing number of China-based Taiwanese companies are planning to move parts of their production lines back to Taiwan amid rising wages in China, a Taiwanese business alliance said Friday. 'It is obvious that the labor cost (in China) is no longer low,' Taiwan's General Chamber of Commerce of the Republic of China said in a statement. 'Taiwanese companies have lost their advantages in setting up factories in the mainland.' 'Many companies are thinking about relocating some of their production lines back to Taiwan,' the statement noted. The statement came after Foxconn Technology Group, as the world's biggest contract electronics maker Hon Hai is known in China, and Japanese carmaker Honda raised their Chinese workers' pay to cope with labor disputes. In the statement, the chamber urged the Taiwan government to help local businesses investing in China deal with the fallout from wage hikes. The chamber also recognized the government's efforts in easing restrictions to attract more Taiwanese companies to return from China. The Ministry of Economic Affairs said Friday that NT$22.1 billion (US$683 million) from China-based Taiwanese companies was invested in Taiwan between January and May this year. The combined amount accounts for 58 percent of the ministry's goal of NT$38 billion for the entire year, the ministry said in a statement. A cross-strait pact that is expected to be signed later this month to further liberalize trade could also prompt some China-based Taiwanese businesses to increase their investment in Taiwan, said C.Y. Ling, the director-general of the ministry's Department of Investment Services. For example, Tingyi (Cayman Islands) Holding Corp., a Taiwanese-owned company that is the biggest maker of instant noodles in China, told Ling late last year that it might expand its production line in Taiwan and transport goods from Taiwan to its markets in central and southern China to save costs. The ministry will organize a summit on June 15 to better inform China-based Taiwanese businesses on how to use Taiwan's research and development to upgrade their competitiveness. Meanwhile, Chang Pen-tsao, the chairman of the chamber of commerce, told reporters before a seminar in Taipei that Foxconn's pay hikes could force other Taiwanese companies to follow suit. 'We don't want to see Foxconn's large pay raises trigger a domino effect that forces other companies to increase their workers' pay, ' he said. 'Many Taiwanese companies might be forced out of business, as electronics companies' profits are already small,' he said. 