The John Tung Foundation (董氏基金會) launched a letter campaign on Tuesday to urge Miaoli County Commissioner Liu Cheng-hung (劉政鴻) to disallow British tobacco giant Imperial Tobacco Group PLC’s expansion plans in the county.
Despite opposition from anti-smoking activists, Liu approved Imperial Tobacco’s application to set up a factory in the county’s Guangyuan Technology Park in March this year.
“Now the company is seeking to expand its operations in Taiwan, as its name appears among a list of companies intending to recruit new employees in a technology park in the county’s Houlong Township [後龍鎮],” John Tung Foundation chief executive officer Yao Shi-yuan (姚思遠) said.
The environmental impact assessment for the Houlong technology park project is still pending approval, and the project’s screening panel has called for a reassessment.
Yao said at a news conference he was worried that Imperial Tobacco would expand its domestic presence by setting up a new production line there.
With prices of tobacco products rising as a result of increased taxation, Yao said major cigarette makers have been exploring new markets and producing specialty products targeted at young people.
LOCAL SMOKERS
“If Imperial Tobacco is allowed to open a new factory in Miaoli, more local youths could join the ranks of smokers,” Yao said. “Therefore, we should step up a publicity campaign to prevent the British tobacco company setting up a new plant in Houlong.”
He urged members of the public to download a letter to Liu from the foundation’s “E-Quit Chinese” Web site to express their opposition to Imperial Tobacco’s expansion and to request the commissioner to reject the company’s Houlong project.
The campaign will encourage the Miaoli County Council to fulfill its supervisory mission by voting down the project, Yao said.
ENTICING THE YOUNG
Lee Feng-ao (李鳳翱), honorary chairman of the Consumers’ Foundation, displayed packs of Imperial Tobacco cigarettes sold in Taiwan that feature pop culture images, including street dancing, rock concerts and DJs, which Lee said were meant to entice young smokers.
“The packaging clearly violates the Tobacco Hazards Prevention Act [菸害防制法],” Lee said. “Worse still, the company has bundled three packs in a single large package so that young people can purchase more cigarettes in one go.”
Branding Imperial Tobacco’s expansion plan a “Second Opium War,” Huang Sung-li (黃嵩立), secretary-general of the Taiwan International Medical Alliance, said the company’s Taiwanese investment plan would facilitate its global business expansion.
Accusing the Miaoli County Government of nurturing disease and death in Taiwan and Asia while helping Imperial Tobacco make money, Huang said the expansion plan reflected the company’s “imperial mentality.”
ACTOR
Sun Yue (孫越), an actor-turned-activist, said a survey conducted by the Bureau of Health Promotion last year found that 11.41 percent of junior high school students in Miaoli County smoked, a ratio far higher than the national average of 7.79 percent.
“We hope Commissioner Liu will take a cue from these figures and show some guts in opposing Imperial Tobacco’s Houlong plant project,” Sun said.
Nissan Motor Co has agreed to sell its global headquarters in Yokohama for ￥97 billion (US$630 million) to a group sponsored by Taiwanese autoparts maker Minth Group (敏實集團), as the struggling automaker seeks to shore up its financial position. The acquisition is led by a special purchase company managed by KJR Management Ltd, a Japanese real-estate unit of private equity giant KKR & Co, people familiar with the matter said. KJR said it would act as asset manager together with Mizuho Real Estate Management Co. Nissan is undergoing a broad cost-cutting campaign by eliminating jobs and shuttering plants as it grapples
TEMPORARY TRUCE: China has made concessions to ease rare earth trade controls, among others, while Washington holds fire on a 100% tariff on all Chinese goods China is effectively suspending implementation of additional export controls on rare earth metals and terminating investigations targeting US companies in the semiconductor supply chain, the White House announced. The White House on Saturday issued a fact sheet outlining some details of the trade pact agreed to earlier in the week by US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) that aimed to ease tensions between the world’s two largest economies. Under the deal, China is to issue general licenses valid for exports of rare earths, gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite “for the benefit of US end users and their suppliers
Dutch chipmaker Nexperia BV’s China unit yesterday said that it had established sufficient inventories of finished goods and works-in-progress, and that its supply chain remained secure and stable after its parent halted wafer supplies. The Dutch company suspended supplies of wafers to its Chinese assembly plant a week ago, calling it “a direct consequence of the local management’s recent failure to comply with the agreed contractual payment terms,” Reuters reported on Friday last week. Its China unit called Nexperia’s suspension “unilateral” and “extremely irresponsible,” adding that the Dutch parent’s claim about contractual payment was “misleading and highly deceptive,” according to a statement
The Chinese government has issued guidance requiring new data center projects that have received any state funds to only use domestically made artificial intelligence (AI) chips, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. In recent weeks, Chinese regulatory authorities have ordered such data centers that are less than 30 percent complete to remove all installed foreign chips, or cancel plans to purchase them, while projects in a more advanced stage would be decided on a case-by-case basis, the sources said. The move could represent one of China’s most aggressive steps yet to eliminate foreign technology from its critical infrastructure amid a
RSS