Taiwan Tobacco & Liquor Corp (
But in a bid to ward off hoarding by retailers, Taiwan Tobacco decided yesterday to set a sales quota for its most popular brand, Long Life cigarettes, chairman Morgan Hwang (
The Cabinet earlier this month passed a proposal by the Department of Health to raise the so-called "health tax" on cigarettes from NT$5 to NT$10 per pack. The proposal is now awaiting review by the legislature before implementation.
Hwang said that the alleged hoarding by retailers also occurred in August, September and October of last year, amid speculation of higher retail prices for cigarettes if the health tax was levied.
To meet the rising demand, Taiwan Tobacco began increasing cigarette production after the Lunar New Year holiday and this month doubled production levels from a year earlier, Hwang said.
Additionally, the company has also increased supply by 15 percent to traditional retailers and 30 percent to convenience stores and supermarkets, he said.
"If consumers cannot buy cigarettes at traditional retailers, they can shop at the 8,000 convenience stores [around the country] or Taiwan Tobacco's outlets," Hwang said.
The company currently has more than 100 outlets across the nation.
Consumers can only buy five packs of Long Life cigarettes per person per purchase at these outlets, Taiwan Tobacco said in a statement yesterday.
But the company is apparently worried about the hoarding situation as there's no law governing such behavior by retailers.
"There's nothing we can do about it ... but use moral persuasion against those retailers," Hwang said.
Therefore, he said the company hopes the legislature can soon review and decide whether to pass the health tax proposal.
Asked whether Taiwan Tobacco will adjust its cigarette prices, Hwang said there will be no change in prices before the tax proposal is passed by the legislature.
But retailers may adjust retail prices to reflect the possible cost increase, he added.
There are an estimated 4.89 million smokers in Taiwan, according to Department of Health statistics.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the