Taiwan adopted the models of manufacturing and contract manufacturing to create the past miracle of rapid economic growth. But the rise of mainland China, Vietnam and other places has eliminated Taiwan's manufacturing advantage. At this juncture, the government has started to proactively search for the next newly emerging industry with great potential.  At the same time, the world's advanced nations also have become aware of the rise of digital technology, and the model for creation of new business. Everyone also recognizes that development of the digital content industry can promote the knowledge-based economy as well as its key significance in the digital economy.

The reason why the digital content industry has attracted so much attention from so many nations primarily lies in the industry’s linkages with high technology and infrastructure, allowing the creation of high added value. Given Taiwan’s strong foundation in IT development and competitiveness in cultural creativity, the Executive Yuan has added the digital content industry to the Two-Trillion Double-Stars Industries Promotion Project. Started after review and approval in May, 2002 and on completion of the first phase of the Program to Enhance the Digital Content Industry, Taiwan has laid a good foundation for digital content. In August 2007, the Executive Yuan started the second phase of the industry development promotion program in the hope of shaping Taiwan into a hub for digital content design, development and manufacturing in the Asia-Pacific region.

Because digital content products and distribution channels are intangible and virtual in nature, these products and services include digital content collection, production, processing, storage, retrieval and transmission. For this reason, any computer animations, digital games, digital videos, mobile applications & services, e-learning creations, internet services, content software, digital publications or archives can be considered within the scope of the digital content industry.

In recent years, with the government’s vigorous promotion, the primary achievements of digital content industry have included production values that increased from NT$133.4 billion in 2001 to NT$360.9 billion in 2007, achieving aggregate average growth of about 21%. Regarding businesses’ continued investment in related digital content development, from 2003 to 2007, total investment reached NT$60 billion, and international cooperation funding exceeded NT$10 billion. The four fields of content software, digital games, digital video and internet services accounted for 80% of total investment. For the training of talented people required by the industry, in the mid- and longterm, a total of 5,327 people/sessions were conducted, and short-term, on-the-job training was conducted for a total of 11,362 people/sessions. More than 70% of the trainees found employment with digital content-related companies. At the same time, the formulation and revision of related laws has laid a foundation for the development of Taiwan's digital content industry.

Still, Korea, Japan, mainland China and other nations have also earmarked huge amounts for development and formulated related policy for the digital content industry's promotion. If Taiwan is to maintain its advantage in this competitive environment, it must provide some stimulus. For the cover story in this issue, we have interviewed Taiwan's key organization promoting the digital content industry persisted with their own original, innovative operating models that have yielded accomplishments and continue to strive for achievement as they move in the right direction for the future.