The government is considering prohibiting the sales of Tsingtao beer from China, two days after it stopped the local agent of the Chinese brewery from running ads on local radio and television stations, officials said yesterday.
"I have asked the Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corp [TTL, 台灣菸酒公司] and relevant departments to study whether to allow the sales of Tsingtao beer in Taiwan," Minister of Finance Lin Chuan (林全) said.
His comment came after demand by DPP lawmakers that the ministry ban sales of the beer in retaliation of Beijing's barring Taiwan from marketing its popular Taiwan Beer in China under its original brand name.
"Our application for the marketing of Taiwan Beer has twice been rejected by Chinese authorities," DPP Legislator Lin Chung-mao (
The board has only been allowed to market its popular beer under the name TTL since it started selling the beer in China last year.
Lin Chung-mao said China has also banned the sales of Kinmen Kaoliang liquor and these actions show that Chinese authorities will not allow the sales of Taiwanese products with Taiwan in their name.
"It is highly unfair for us to agree to the import of mainland beers with Chinese areas' titles, such as Tsingtao Beer and Yenjing Beer," the lawmaker said.
The lawmaker asked that the TTL resolves the issue by next month or he would initiate a motion to sack the company's chairman Morgan Huang (
Minister Lin said it is China's law that no territorial titles can be used to name products imported to China and there is little the ministry can do to make Beijing change its law.
He said under the circumstances, he would ask government officials to study the possibility of barring Tsingtao Beer from being marketed domestically.
The Government Information Office has recently banned Tsingtao Brewery from making TV and radio commercials on the ground that the Legislative Yuan has yet to pass the revision of the Statute Governing the Relations between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area(台灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) which requires prior regulatory approval for any ads broadcasting Chinese products.
The brewery's local agent, Taiwan Tsing Beer Corp (台灣青啤), cried foul, saying the ad ban was related to Beijing's rejection of the marketing of Taiwan Beer. Taiwan Tsing Beer is a unit of Taiwan-based Sanyo Whisbih Group (三洋維士比).
Since it entered the Taiwanese market last year, Tsingtao Beer has gained about 10 percent of the beer market, earning NT$2 billion (US$57.14 million).
With an approval rating of just two percent, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte might be the world’s most unpopular leader, according to pollsters. Protests greeted her rise to power 29 months ago, and have marked her entire term — joined by assorted scandals, investigations, controversies and a surge in gang violence. The 63-year-old is the target of a dozen probes, including for her alleged failure to declare gifts of luxury jewels and watches, a scandal inevitably dubbed “Rolexgate.” She is also under the microscope for a two-week undeclared absence for nose surgery — which she insists was medical, not cosmetic — and is
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
CHIP DUTIES: TSMC said it voiced its concerns to Washington about tariffs, telling the US commerce department that it wants ‘fair treatment’ to protect its competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reiterated robust business prospects for this year as strong artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from Nvidia Corp and other customers would absorb the impacts of US tariffs. “The impact of tariffs would be indirect, as the custom tax is the importers’ responsibility, not the exporters,” TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at the chipmaker’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu City. TSMC’s business could be affected if people become reluctant to buy electronics due to inflated prices, Wei said. In addition, the chipmaker has voiced its concern to the US Department of Commerce
RSS