After a procurement delegation from China’s Jiangsu Province visited Taiwan early last month, another delegation from Henan Province is expected to procure US$560 million in products from local firms, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said yesterday.
Including the Henan delegation, the estimated total procurement of eight Chinese delegations this year is US$15 billion, it said in a statement.
While Jiangsu companies sourced mostly tech products, the current Henan delegation is on the lookout for agricultural products — especially fruit that is not common in Henan, such as bell fruit, mango and star fruit.
Dennis Department Store Co (丹尼斯百貨) was one of the 18 Henan firms present at a procurement event in Taipei yesterday that attracted 78 Taiwanese firms looking for possible partnerships.
As the largest retailer in Henan Province, Dennis owns 54 hypermarkets, 19 shopping malls and 120 convenience stores, with more than 30,000 employees. Its Chinese chairman, Wang Rensheng (王任生), was raised in Tainan.
“We started to sell Taiwanese mineral water and fruit in our retail outlets a year ago and the response has been fairly good,” Dennis manager Ding Lili (丁麗麗) said.
Dennis’ annual sales hit 7 billion yuan (US$1 billion) a year, with fruit products accounting for 10 percent of total revenue, she said.
The company plans to procure more fruit from Taiwan and may purchase Taiwanese tea and cosmetics to offer a wider variety of products, she said.
Meanwhile, Henan Jinyitong Jiuye Co (金億通酒業) was on the lookout for suppliers of kaoliang liquor from Kinmen.
The company has been selling Kinmen kaoliang for four years to rave reviews, with the liquor even selected by the Henan Provincial Government as the main alcohol to serve official guests because of its quality and taste, general manager Xu Dali (徐大利) said.
It plans to expand its collaboration with Taiwanese firms by doubling its procurement budget for Kinmen kaoliang this year to 30 million yuan, he said.
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