$37,000, contributing to a Human Development Index equivalent to that of other developed countries. Taiwan's HDI in 2007 is 0.943 (25th, very high), and stands at 0.868 in 2010 (18th, very high), according to the UN's new calculating method ("Inequality-adjusted HDI").
Today Taiwan has a dynamic, capitalist, export-driven economy with gradually decreasing state involvement in investment and foreign trade. In keeping with this trend, some large government-owned banks and industrial firms are being privatized. Real growth in GDP has averaged about 8% during the past three decades. Exports have provided the primary impetus for industrialization. The trade surplus is substantial, and foreign reserves are the world's fifth largest. The Republic of China has its own currency, the New Taiwan dollar.
Since the beginning of the 1990s, the economic ties between Taiwan and Mainland China have been very prolific. As of 2008, more than US$150 billion have been invested in the PRC by Taiwanese companies, and about 10% of the Taiwanese labour force works in the PRC, often to run their own businesses. Although the economy of Taiwan benefits from this situation, some have expressed the view that the island has become increasingly dependent on the Mainland Chinese economy. A 2008 white paper by the Department of Industrial Technology states that "Taiwan should seek to maintain stable relation with China while continuing to protect national security, and avoiding excessive 'Sinicization' of Taiwanese economy." Others argue that close economic ties between Taiwan and Mainland China would make any military intervention by the PLA against Taiwan very costly, and therefore less probable.
Taiwan’s total trade in 2010 reached an all-time high of US$526.04 billion, according to Taiwan's Ministry of Finance. Both exports and imports for the year reached record levels, totaling US$274.64 billion and US$251.4 billion, respectively.
In 2001, agriculture constituted
