Thanks to the booming Internet development, entrepreneurs-to-be for the first time ranked online business as one of their most favored sectors, an online survey found yesterday.
Opening virtual stores is ranked fifth on the Top-10 list, securing 7 percent support from the 1,000 respondents. The food and beverage sector remains the mainstream, taking up six places on the list including breakfast stores, beverage shops, coffee shops and fast-food chains, according to the information compiled by the Association of Chain and Franchise Promotion (
"The lower capital requirement for setting up online businesses has made it attractive to young people, who have shown greater interest in becoming their own bosses," said the association's secretary general Beryl Lee (李培芬) at a press conference yesterday.
There are now 1,366 franchises headquartered in the country, with 450,000 workers employed in 80,000 stores, Lee said.
As the new labor pension plan to be implemented on July 1 is expected to affect the job market, the association suggested that those planning to join the franchise business should first focus on successful brands, as headquarters would be capable of providing better know-how and management assistance, association chairman William Wang (王國安) said.
This way, entrepreneurs could avoid pursuing a temporary fad, like Portuguese-style egg tarts and Hong Kong-based shaved-ice chain Hui Lau Shan (許留山), both of which quickly pulled out of the market due to poor performance.
The association will present a Taipei International Chain and Franchise Exhibition at the Taipei World Trade Center Exhibition Hall I starting tomorrow. The show is expected to draw more than 120,000 visitors during its four-day run, the organizer said.
The show will have 400 booths, featuring 150 local and international franchise brands. It will be open from 10am to 6pm daily.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
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
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