Foreign investors have approached state-run Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corporation (TTL,
"Many foreign firms have made inquiries about investment after we announced our privatization plan," said Morgan Hwang (
TTL, a 56 year-old company with NT$35 billion in working capital, was spun off from the Taiwan Tobacco and Alcohol Monopoly Bureau (台灣省菸酒公賣局) last July, and is set to complete privatization by the end of next year. By that time, over 50 percent of its shares will be released to private investors, at a price of about NT$20 each.
"Prospective firms that can ensure job opportunities for the more than 7,000 employees in the company, while increasing competitiveness and feeding into related local industries will be taken into consideration first," Hwang said.
While Hwang did not reveal any of the companies that have expressed an interest in pumping cash into TTL, one Belgian beer brewer said that it and all major brand names in the market would jump at the chance of getting involved in TTL's privatization project.
"Taiwan's beer market is lucrative," said Vincent Wang (王得進), the marketing and sales coordinator for Beck's Beer, a brand of Belgian beer giant Interbrew. "Foreign firms including us are interested in getting a slice of TTL's annual billion-dollar profits through investing in the company."
Last year, TTL reported NT$62.8 billion in revenue, a decline of 15 percent from the previous year due increased competition after the local liquor market was liberalized. Its share of the beer market also dropped from 82 percent in 2001 to 74 percent last year.
The 8-percent drop was grabbed by China's Tsingtao Beer (
"TTL's beer sales have already bounced back and swept over the market this summer, demonstrating the strength of the company and its products," Wang said.
Tsingtao Beer may be still a formidable rival for the indigenous Taiwan Beer, but after the government banned Tsingtao's TV commercials in February in retaliation for China's ban on Taiwan Beer's ads, its sales have been declining.
TTL's Hwang was also upbeat about this summer's sales results to date, saying the company has recently taken back 4 percent in market share with its new Gold Medal Taiwan Beer (金牌台灣啤酒) release.
"The demand for new products almost exceeds supply so we are considering dropping the commercials and going back to the promotion of Taiwan Beer," Hwang said. "I believe our revenues for this year will reach NT$69 billion."
One analyst is looking forward to seeing foreign investment in the new privatized TTL.
"In addition to advancing competitiveness, foreign companies will be a great help in promoting TTL's products in the international community," said Chou Tien-chen (
When Lika Megreladze was a child, life in her native western Georgian region of Guria revolved around tea. Her mother worked for decades as a scientist at the Soviet Union’s Institute of Tea and Subtropical Crops in the village of Anaseuli, Georgia, perfecting cultivation methods for a Georgian tea industry that supplied the bulk of the vast communist state’s brews. “When I was a child, this was only my mum’s workplace. Only later I realized that it was something big,” she said. Now, the institute lies abandoned. Yellowed papers are strewn around its decaying corridors, and a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin
UNIFYING OPPOSITION: Numerous companies have registered complaints over the potential levies, bringing together rival automakers in voicing their reservations US President Donald Trump is readying plans for industry-specific tariffs to kick in alongside his country-by-country duties in two weeks, ramping up his push to reshape the US’ standing in the global trading system by penalizing purchases from abroad. Administration officials could release details of Trump’s planned 50 percent duty on copper in the days before they are set to take effect on Friday next week, a person familiar with the matter said. That is the same date Trump’s “reciprocal” levies on products from more than 100 nations are slated to begin. Trump on Tuesday said that he is likely to impose tariffs
ELECTRONICS BOOST: A predicted surge in exports would likely be driven by ICT products, exports of which have soared 84.7 percent from a year earlier, DBS said DBS Bank Ltd (星展銀行) yesterday raised its GDP growth forecast for Taiwan this year to 4 percent from 3 percent, citing robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI)-related exports and accelerated shipment activity, which are expected to offset potential headwinds from US tariffs. “Our GDP growth forecast for 2025 is revised up to 4 percent from 3 percent to reflect front-loaded exports and strong AI demand,” Singapore-based DBS senior economist Ma Tieying (馬鐵英) said in an online briefing. Taiwan’s second-quarter performance beat expectations, with GDP growth likely surpassing 5 percent, driven by a 34.1 percent year-on-year increase in exports, Ma said, citing government
HELPING HAND: Approving the sale of H20s could give China the edge it needs to capture market share and become the global standard, a US representative said The US President Donald Trump administration’s decision allowing Nvidia Corp to resume shipments of its H20 artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China risks bolstering Beijing’s military capabilities and expanding its capacity to compete with the US, the head of the US House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party said. “The H20, which is a cost-effective and powerful AI inference chip, far surpasses China’s indigenous capability and would therefore provide a substantial increase to China’s AI development,” committee chairman John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican, said on Friday in a letter to US Secretary of