Taipei Times (TT): Some Taiwanese companies have had roots in Indonesia for more than 30 years, including those textile manufacturers that seek production bases with lower labor costs. From your observations, are there any emerging opportunities for Taiwanese companies to explore in Indonesia?
James Huang (黃志芳): Taiwan last year invested a total of US$397 million in Indonesia, indicating a 166 percent jump from US$149 million in 2016. The figure shows that a lot of Taiwanese companies have expressed interests in tapping into the Indonesian market.
There is a noticeable shift in business models. In the past, most Taiwanese export-reliant firms that chose Indonesia as their production base sold their products to overseas customers. However, in recent years, I have found that some companies have shifted their target to Indonesia’s domestic market, such as tire maker Cheng Shin Rubber Industry Co (正新橡膠).
Photo: Kuo Chia-erh, Taipei Times
Apart from suppliers in traditional manufacturing industries, many services and “smart” solution providers have been trying to enter the Indonesian market, eyeing growing demand backed by the country’s strong economic growth.
The trend echoes the government’s New Southbound Policy, which encourages Taiwanese businesspeople to grasp opportunities in the domestic demand markets of our Southeast Asian neighbors.
TT: How can TAITRA help Taiwanese companies sell their products in the Indonesian market?
Huang: We launched the Taiwan Halal Center in Taipei in April last year, with the aim of promoting halal-certified products. Our colleagues working at overseas branches also help Taiwanese companies obtain related certification to export their products to Muslim markets.
It is so important for us to continue promoting halal certification, considering regulatory changes regarding Indonesia’s food products. From next year, all goods distributed in Indonesia must be clearly labeled as halal-certified or non-halal.
TT: TAITRA held its first-ever Taiwan Expo in Indonesia last year. What were the features of this year’s Taiwan Expo in Jakarta?
Huang: The role of the Taiwan Expo is to raise awareness about the New Southbound Policy and facilitate collaborations through matchmaking events. We introduce our best technologies and products to customers in different markets.
The size of this year’s Taiwan Expo almost doubled from last year. For this year’s exhibition, we invited 230 Taiwanese firms from 10 industries, ranging from machinery, home appliances and cosmetics to food and beverages. They used 280 booths to exhibit more than 4,500 products and services at the three-day event.
Aside from new booths and pavilions, we also organized a special team comprising officials from eight Taiwanese banks to investigate Indonesia’s financial market. There is still much room for the development of the banking industry, given that country’s population is nearly 250 million.
The Taiwan Expo last year generated orders worth about US$49 million in Jakarta and we expect the figure to grow by at least 20 percent annually this year.
TT: What are TAITRA’s promotion plans for other Asian countries this year?
Huang: We are to hold a Taiwan Expo in New Delhi for the first time next month. India is a rapidly growing economy with a total population of 1.3 billion people and its economic growth is even faster than China and ASEAN members. The market is worth exploring further.
The India event aims to be in line with the Indian government’s latest economic policies. The government has been pushing several programs that boost economic development, such as Make in India, Green India and Digital India. The size of India’s digital economy, for instance, is expected to reach US$1 trillion in the foreseeable future.
We hope to meet rising demand in those sectors, since Taiwan is globally competitive in the manufacturing, green energy and telecommunication industries. TAITRA will also hold a Taiwan Expo in Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia this year. Each expo will be themed to suit each country.
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
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
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts