Formosa Plastics Group (FPG, 台塑企業), the nation’s largest industrial conglomerate, yesterday said that anti-China protesters in Vietnam broke into the facilities of its division in Nhon Trach District, Dong Nai Province, on Tuesday, injuring one employee from Taiwan.
The protests were caused by China’s dispatch of an oil rig to a disputed area in the South China Sea 120km from Vietnam’s coast.
However, protesters on Tuesday either could not or did not differentiate between Taiwanese companies and Chinese ones, Hong Fu-yuan (洪福源), president of the group’s Vietnamese division, Formosa Industries Corp (台灣興業), said in Taipei yesterday.
Photo: CNA
About 300 protesters, some carrying steel bars and others on motorcycles, stormed Formosa Industries’ offices, factory and dormitory at 11:45pm on Tuesday. They stole or destroyed computer monitors and TV, as well as robbed employees of personal property, before leaving at about 4am, Hong said.
Formosa Plastics Group is one of the biggest foreign investors in Vietnam. Hong said Formosa Industries had halted its operations in Dong Nai and is assessing the damage. While major facilities were not affected, resuming operations will depend on whether the local government can offer the firm sufficient protection, he said.
“The situation was close to anarchy,” Hong said. “Since the Vietnamese government is incapable of protecting investors from abroad, we believe foreign investors will have to reconsider their future investments in the country.”
Asked about the company’s US$500 million capacity expansion plan for textile and plastics production in the area, Hong said it will re-evaluate the parts of the initiative that have not been initiated yet, without offering details.
Formosa Industries has no plan to repatriate its 200 Taiwanese employees because it is still too dangerous, he added.
Formosa Industries posts annual revenues of NT$25 billion (US$803.08 million) on average and employs 3,000 workers, Hong said.
Tire maker Cheng Shin Rubber Industrial Co (正新輪胎), which rents land from Formosa Industries in the area, said its premises were also attacked by anti-China protesters, causing it to shut its Vietnamese division down yesterday.
Cheng Shin is still assessing the damage at its Vietnamese unit, which produces 15,000 tires for motorcycles a year and posts annual revenue of NT$3 billion a year on average, or about 3 percent of the tire maker’s total revenue.
However, Advanced International Multitech Co (明安國際), which also rents land from Formosa Industries in the area to manufacture golf club heads and putters, is sending 30 of its Taiwanese staff home.
The golf equipment firm’s division in Vietnam, which generates 10 percent of its products, yesterday said it would use its Chinese plants to meet client orders.
Apparel maker Eclat Textile Co (儒鴻) also shut down five factories in southern Vietnam yesterday, but kept two in the north open.
Sales of Eclat’s Vietnamese division accounted for more than 50 percent of the company’s revenue of NT$18.14 billion last year, vice president Roger Lo (羅仁傑) said.
Eclat did not receive any report of damage at its factories, Lo said.
As for its capacity expansion drive in Nhon Trach, Lo said it will be completed by the end of this quarter as scheduled.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
RSS