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Taiwan faces difficulties in brand recognition: Shih

Taiwan still faces an uphill battle in branding strategies, with the nation's "father of branding" Stan Shih (施振榮) saying that it may take another 30 years for the nation to move from a high-tech manufacturing base to a nation known for its own brands.

Shih, founder in 1976 of the world's third largest computer manufacturer, Acer Inc, made the comments yesterday at a speech to the non-profit Development Center for Biotechnology.

Despite difficulties, Shih gave his support to the nation's efforts to develop biotechnology industries, following its past success in information technology industries.

"Confidence is crucial for the success of the biotechnology industry, as it requires a longer period for research and development compared with the Information Technology (IT) industry," Shih said.

Acer has tapped into the healthcare industry, but has yet to enter the biotechnology industry, he said.

Taiwan's biotechnology industry includes biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and medical devices. The total number of firms in the biotechnology industry, however, dropped to 1,136 firms last year, down from 1,156 firms one year earlier.

The sector's export value, which amounted to NT$53.8 billion (US$1.6 billion) in 2005, climbed to NT$60.6 billion last year. The sector's import value also saw an increase of NT$19.9 billion from NT$113.3 billion in 2005 to NT$133.2 billion last year, statistics provided by the Ministry of Economic Affairs biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries program office showed.

The Executive Yuan approved the Challenge 2008 six-year national development plan in May 2002, aiming to nurture the burgeoning biotechnology industry as one of the "Two Trillion (semiconductor and display sectors), Twin Stars (digital content and biotechnology)" industries (二兆雙星產業).

"Taiwan actually has Three Trillion," Shih said. "Two Trillion includes semiconductor and display sectors. The third trillion is the IT industry, which helps promote the semiconductor and display sectors," he said.

In related news, chairman of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) Morris Chang (張忠謀), said yesterday that he was optimistic about the semiconductor industry's growth next year as there is sufficient supply.
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