Backed by strong government funding, Taiwan's output of a wide range of products using nanotechnology will jump 10-fold by 2008 to T$300 billion (US$10 billion), reported Reuters.

Nanotechnology deals with manipulating particles one-billionth of a meter in size, and promises benefits from a coating of paint that lasts decades, to faster-acting and more effective medicines, to golf balls that go further and straighter, the report noted.

"The government has targeted nanotechnology as the most important strategic industry for Taiwan's future economic growth," Su Tsung-tsan, general director of the NanoTechnology Research Center, told Reuters.

Su said Taiwan will produce T$1 trillion of goods using nanotechnology by the year 2012, accounting for nearly 10 percent of the island's US$350 billion economy.