In recent years, affected by extreme weather, Taiwan has faced drought - flood abrupt alternation, which poses a severe test for the stability of water use in cities and industries. According to the Global Water Intelligence (GWI) data, the global water industry grows more than 4% annually on average. As all countries are fully committed to this emerging market and industry, Taiwan is no exception. With the vigorous development of domestic high-tech industries, Taiwanese manufacturers have developed unique competitive advantages in high-end water treatment technology by integrating precision materials and application information and communication technologies. This has driven the birth of "reclaimed water industry" and brought new development opportunities for Taiwan's water industry.

"Reclaimed water" refers to the reuse of wastewater or its discharge water that has been treated to meet the specific purpose of usage for industrial needs. There are currently a number of reclaimed water projects being undertaken by the government to make up for the shortage of tap water supply. Among them, Kaohsiung's Fengshan Wastewater Treatment Center, which is Taiwan’s first reclaimed water plant for a 10,000-ton public sewer system, has officially opened for business since August 2018, producing 45,000 tons of reclaimed water per day for the users located in the waterfront industrial area including China Steel Corporation and other large companies. It is expected that the reclaimed water plants located in Linhai in Kaohsiung City and Yongkang in Tainan City will be also completed to supply water by the end of 2021, with the latter supplying water for high-precision technology processes in Southern Taiwan Science Park, setting a precedent in the world.

In order to achieve a stable supply of reclaimed water in quantity and quality and meet the stringent quality control requirements of the manufacturing industry, several industrial clusters of water resources have been formed in Taiwan, including the Hsinchu Pure Water System, the Taichung Filtration Materials, the Changhua Water Hardware, and so on, constructing horizontal and vertical networks conducive to a confluence of knowledge, intelligence, and business opportunities, as well as the promotion of a new supply chain for the reclaimed water industry. Among the exhibitors this time, the GSD Technologies Co., Ltd. has crossed over from a producer of various types of special-purpose pumps to a firm specializing in the smart IoT water-making technologies; the King Membrane Energy Technology Inc. produces hollow fiber ultrafiltration membrane for reclaimed water to remove nano-level particles; the water technology research group of Material and Chemical Research Laboratories of Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) has developed a special nanofiltration and desalination membrane, which has attracted the attention of large domestic engineering companies and has the opportunity to be used in the reclaimed water plants in the future; the thin-film distillation equipment showcased by the Chung Yuan Christian University can be used together with factory waste heat to produce water without relying on fossil energy sources, thus reducing energy consumption for water production.

It is expected that those emerging economies targeted by our New Southbound Policy will follow the trajectory of Taiwan to face uneven distribution of water sources in various sectors, especially the lack of industrial water, as their manufacturing industries develop. As a result, those countries will have a high demand for high-end water purification technologies for reclaimed water. It is here that Taiwan's reclaimed water industry will be full of potential opportunities to export its overall solutions with the most advantageous business model and go abroad to seek new opportunities for global development.