Teco Group (東元集團) is considering setting up a production facility in India, chairman Theodore Huang (黃茂雄) said yesterday.
The company intends to tap into the world’s second-most populous market to produce industrial electrical parts and possibly become a supplier of domestic companies, including Tata Group — India’s largest automobile maker, Huang said.
The plans are being finalized and the investment timeframe would fall around June, he said, but declined to specify investment figures.
Founded in 1956 to manufacture industrial motors, Teco has grown into a conglomerate that also produces home appliances, telecommunications equipment and electrochemical components, among others.
Huang visited five Indian cities in January last year for an investment feasibility study. On his second trip in March last year, he brought back two Tata Nanos — the flagship model from Tata Group and dubbed the world’s cheapest car with a starting price of US$2,900.
“The proposal to invest in India has met with opposing voices in the company. Many [other firms that] had invested in India did not work out,” Huang said. “Investment barriers, including language problems, are higher there compared with China.”
However, Taiwanese companies should change their mindset about India and stop looking at it as a cheap production hub, but instead consider it as a market with a booming domestic consumption demand, said Huang, who also heads the Taiwan-India Cooperation Council (台灣印度協會).
Huang made the remarks at a press briefing held by the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD), which is leading a nearly 90-member delegation to India on Sunday for a five-day investment road show.
The delegation will hold road shows in New Delhi, Mumbai and Ahmedabad, visit Indian automakers, drug manufacturers and tech firms, and tour economic zones.
In addition to government officials, the delegation members include representatives of Taiwanese firms engaged in the green energy, biomedical and financial fields who are interested in exploring India’s investment environment, the CEPD said.
Council of Economic Planning and Development Minister Christina Liu (劉憶如) said there is room for Taiwan and India to improve bilateral trade ties.
Citing government statistics, she said that from 2000 to last year, Taiwanese investments in India accounted for only 0.1 percent of the nation’s outbound investments, while Indian investments in Taiwan accounted for 0.05 percent of Taiwan’s total foreign direct investments.
“India is a market that Taiwan should pay attention to, judging from its sheer size and market potential. There is a lot of trade growth that could be expected from both sides,” Liu said.
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
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
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