The government intends to lure more investment from Taiwanese firms based in China by touting six new star industries, a Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) official said Monday. Yu Chi-cheng, deputy director of the MOEA's Department of Industrial Services, touted the benefits of investing in Taiwan at a gathering of China-based Taiwanese businessmen in southern Taiwan's Kaohsiung City to celebrate the Mid- Autumn Festival. Yu was trying to solicit investment in six star industries that Taiwan's government has pushed aggressively as future growth engines -- specialty agriculture, green energy, health care, tourism, cultural innovation and biotechnology, Among the 200 attendees were Kao Koong-lian, vice chairman and secretary-general of the semi-official Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and over 100 representatives of Taiwanese businessmen's associations in China. At the gathering, Yu also noted that total investment in Taiwan by local businessmen operating in China had already beat the target set by the MOEA for 2009. The amount of capital injected by overseas Taiwan businessmen into the domestic market between September 2006 and September this year totaled NT$71.7 billion (US$2.26 billion), with NT$67.4 billion in 245 projects invested by those with operations in China, Yu said. The balance of the investment was made by Taiwanese businessmen in the United States, Canada and Southeast Asian countries. China-based Taiwanese businessmen launched 110 investment projects in Taiwan worth a total of NT$18.6 billion in 2008, and another 79 projects worth NT$35 billion in the first nine months of 2009, MOEA statistics showed. 