A bilateral trade pact between Taiwan and China has contributed to the recent growth in Taiwanese bicycle exports to China, Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥) said at the opening of the Taipei International Cycle Show yesterday.
Under the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) signed in June 2010, Chinese duties on imports of Taiwan-made bicycles were eliminated this year after having been reduced to 5 percent last year, down from 11 to 12 percent previously, Shih said.
Certain bicycle components were given similar tariff breaks, Shih added.
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times
The preferential tariffs contributed to a 207 percent year-on-year rise in the export value of assembled bicycles to China and a 99 percent rise in the value of component exports last year.
“The tariff reductions have been very helpful to promote exports of our high-end bicycles and components to China,” he said at the world’s second-largest bike exhibition.
Taiwan Bicycle Exporters’ Association chairman Anthony Lo (羅祥安) said Taiwan sold about 33,000 bicycles to China last year, a three-fold increase from the 11,000 shipped in 2010.
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times
Another 20,000 bicycles were exported to China in the first two months of this year, Lo said, adding that he expects sales to China to total US$200 million this year, up from US$80 million last year.
Lo said the average selling price of Taiwanese bikes exported to China last year was US$500 — 10 times higher than the US$50 average for the 500,000 bikes Taiwan imported from China.
Taiwanese exports of bicycle components to China also doubled to US$64 million last year from US$32 million in 2010.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy