Jason Lin (林蒼生), chief executive officer of Uni-President Group (統一集團), the nation's biggest food manufacturer, yesterday reiterated the company's ambition to increase its investment stake in the Asian market, especially China, despite some obstacles lying ahead.
"The era of Asia has come," Lin said yesterday at a forum on Taiwanese companies' overseas investment strategies. The forum was held by the non-profit Asia Foundation in Taiwan.
Lin said that throughout history, social and economic development have followed a westward direction -- first in India and then in Europe, the US and Japan.
"Now China and Southeast Asia will light up economically. Business potential in China-led Asia must not be ignored," he said.
According to the company, it has seen increased proportions of its revenue coming from China and Southeast Asia -- growing from 34 percent and 4 percent in 2001 to 37 percent and 7 percent last year, respectively.
Although the Asian market is viewed by Uni-President as the world's most attractive and challenging battlefield, given its massive population and growth potential, Lin said that forming joint ventures would be the key to gaining a competitive edge in the market.
In early January, the group announced that it would enter into a 50-50 partnership with Japan's Kirin Beverage Corp to manufacture tea, coffee and health drinks in the Beijing area.
But its latest plan -- to cooperate with China's Shanghai Bright Dairy & Food Co (
When approached by the Taipei Times, Lin refused to disclose any information about the negotiation progress with Bright, only saying, "[The obstruction] is [Bright's] business."
Simon Hung (
Lin said that Uni-President's global positioning remains unchanged and it aims to become one of the world's leading food makers by 2017.
Speaking at the same event, Theodore Huang (
Teco is Taiwan's largest maker of heavy-duty electric motors and the No. 3 supplier of industrial motors in the world, with a 5-percent share of the global market.
In order to reduce investment risk and to take advantage of cheaper labor outside Taiwan, Teco has started assembling its products in the Subic Bay Freeport Zone of the Philippines before transporting them back to Taiwan or exporting them to Southeast Asia, a Chinese-language newspaper reported yesterday.
Teco is also planning to team up with a Japanese partner this month, who will become the sales agent for Teco's electric motors, home appliances and information technology hardware products in the Middle East market, the report said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained