Taiwan’s foremost semi-official trade promotion organization will assist local manufacturers of consumer electronics to take part in trade fairs in China’s second-tier cities this year, with the aim of boosting their products’ visibility in the targeted cities.
The plan was mapped out after several Taiwanese electronics spare parts and flat panel manufacturers successfully tapped into the Chinese market by capitalizing on a subsidy program Beijing launched last year to boost electronic appliance sales in rural areas, said Huang Wen-jung (黃文榮), deputy secretary-general of the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA, 外貿協會).
The subsidy program has been beneficial mainly to Taiwanese flat-panel and spare parts producers, but not to its finished product manufacturers, Huang said.
Chinese products account for 80 percent of China’s total TV market, with the other 20 percent shared by Japanese and South Korean products. Taiwan’s TV manufacturers do not have much of a market share there, the official said.
Therefore, TAITRA plans to help Taiwanese manufacturers take part in trade shows in China’s second-tier cities, which include Tianjin, Jinan, Dongguan, Chongqing and Chengdu, as promotion costs in first-tier cities are considered too high, Huang said.
Although Acer Inc (宏碁) and Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) — Taiwan’s two leading providers of computers — have a presence in China, it is much smaller than that of China’s Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想), Huang said, adding that there was a need to promote Taiwanese name-brand products in China.
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