A U.S. trade group has suggested that Taiwan should leverage its strengths in high-tech manufacturing to position itself as a technology regional hub, as more businesses will be willing to consider Taiwan an Asia-Pacific center when there are regular direct flights across the Taiwan Strait to major cities in China. 'Numerous analysts say, Taiwan's best bet would be to leverage its existing strengths in high-tech manufacturing to position itself as a regional hub for technology-intensive industries such as ICT and biotech, though they caution that Taiwan has a window of about 10 years to accomplish this before cities in China start catching up, ' the Taipei-based American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) said in the cover story of its latest business publication, Topics. Many Taiwan-based ICT companies are already playing important regional and even global roles, the report analyzes, noting that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), for instance, is the world's largest contract chip maker and that companies with head offices in Taiwan account for 80 percent of the world's notebook computer production. 'In Taiwan, you have ready access to the electronic manufacturing chain and also access to distribution channels in China,' Peter Kurz, head of Taiwan country research for Citi Investment Research, is quoted as saying. 'It'll be the tech companies that draw foreign companies here, whether Japanese or Western,' he added. Tristan Liu, an economist with the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER), reached the same conclusion about Taiwan's prospects for serving as a regional center. He views such a hub as encompassing tech-related downstream activity, such as chip packaging, venture capital firms and other financial services aimed specifically at technology companies, and other services such as recruiting and training. Wang Jiann-chyuan, an economist with the Chung-Hwa Institution for Economic Research (CIER), estimates that 5 percent to 10 percent of Taiwanese companies based overseas intend to relocate more operations here because of the improvements in cross-strait ties and new, more stringent labor regulations that have been adopted in China. Lim Tay Her, an analyst with Asias leading brokage house CLSA Asia Pacific Markets, notes that if 30 percent of the more-than 1 million Taiwanese working in China should return, the added consumption of those 300,000 people would have a dramatic impact on the economy, since most of them are relatively highly paid professionals. Besides technology expertise, Taiwan is also more attractive than Chinese locations in terms of living conditions, IPR protection and employee loyalty -- and surprisingly, even for many costs. But it still needs to reduce government red tape in order to be competitive. 'We've found that the cost of running a business in Taiwan is actually slightly better than running the same business in other (Asian) locations -- including things like cost of living, the cost of expatriate rent, office costs and manufacturing costs, ' said Alan T. Eusden, chairman of AmCham and president of Corning Display Technologies, a leading maker of glass substrate for liquid crystal display panels. However, the report warns that inadequate infrastructure and the proliferation of bureaucratic red tape might be the two most daunting obstacles standing in the way of Taiwan becoming a regional operations hub. Overall, Eusden noted, as long as regulations are clear, their implementation efficient, and improvements made in the infrastructure, 'combined with all the benefits that already exist in Taiwan, I think you end up with a location that can operate as a regional operations hub quite effectively.' 