The nation’s furniture industry has suffered substantial financial losses after several international furniture manufacturers entered and started dominating the market. The signing of the cross-strait service trade agreement would only compound its suffering by allowing more competitors into the already saturated sector, industry representatives said yesterday.
New Taipei City Furniture Commerce Association chairman Chien Lung-fu (簡隆富) said there used to be up to 700 furniture manufacturers and retailers in the city in the industry’s heyday, which ended about a decade ago when many Taiwanese businesspeople started investing in Chinese furniture makers and importing their low-cost products to Taiwan.
“At that time, the majority of consumers had little knowledge of the differences between furniture manufactured locally and those made in China. All they knew was that there was no need to spend extra money on a locally produced sofa when there were cheaper options [from China],” Chien said.
Chien said the import of furniture made in China dealt the industry a serious blow and that the adverse effects it brought did not ease up until the public learned the hard way that home furnishings from China, however inexpensive they were, were often crudely made.
However, because of the economic downturn in recent years, the number of furniture sellers in the city has been cut in half, Chien said, adding that despite the surge in house prices, most homes were bought by property speculators and were therefore left empty and unfurnished.
Former chairman of the association, Tu Jung-li (塗榮立), who is also the president of a 20-year-old Taiwanese furniture brand, said the word “misery” best encapsulated the predicaments faced by the industry in recent years.
“Due to the difficulties in acquiring land and the rising costs of hiring domestic workers, many Taiwanese furniture makers have moved their businesses to China,” Tu said.
To make matters worse, the government has signed a treaty that will open up the industry to Chinese investors, Tu said, allowing them to integrate production and marketing of furniture and squeeze local proprietors’ market shares.
“The industry has hit rock bottom and signing the service trade deal is like adding salt to an already festering wound,” Tu added.
Tu said local furniture chains and businesses that provided furnishings for hotels were expected to suffer most from the agreement, as newly built hotels might shift their furniture orders from Taiwanese manufacturers to Chinese makers after the latter are permitted to manufacture and sell their products in Taiwan without having to worry about shipping costs.
“Neither small furniture makers nor large furniture chains would be able to withstand the fierce competition once Chinese investors are allowed to open furniture retail stores across Taiwan,” Tu said.
Since the government signed the pact with China on June 21 without any prior consultations with the sectors potentially affected by the treaty, it should draw up complementary measures to help local businesses ride out the crisis.
Under the cross-strait agreement, which needs to be ratified by the Legislative Yuan before it can take effect, 64 Taiwanese sub-sectors would be opened up to Chinese investment, including transportation, tourism and traditional Chinese medicine.
Meanwhile, China would open 80 sub-sectors to Taiwan.
OVERHAUL NEEDED: The government should improve its agricultural processing capabilities and expand to new markets to limit its reliance on China, an expert said China’s ban on Taiwanese pineapples was “unsurprising,” and Taiwan should have years ago altered its produce export strategies and target customers, experts said. China on Friday abruptly suspended imports of pineapples from Taiwan, saying that it had on multiple occasions discovered “harmful biological entities” on the fruit. Calling it an “unfriendly” move, the Council of Agriculture (COA) said that 99.79 percent of the pineapples sent to China since last year have met China’s import standards. Chiao Chun (焦鈞), the author of Fruits and Politics — A Recollection of Cross-strait Agricultural Interaction Over the Past Decade (水果政治學：兩岸農業交流十年回顧與展望), said that China’s announcement is clearly targeting
The Council of Agriculture yesterday signed a Taiwan-Australia Agricultural Cooperation Implementation clause to open a new export market for the nation’s pineapple crop. The clause is an addition to existing cooperation measures, it said. China on Friday last week abruptly announced that it would suspend pineapple imports from Taiwan starting on Monday, on grounds that it had on multiple occasions discovered “harmful organisms” in shipments of the fruit. The public and private sectors have since joined hands to purchase the local fruit to help the nation’s pineapple farmers. Canberra has requested that all pineapples for export to Australia have their crown buds removed,
DECADES OF INFLUENCE: Over the past 20 years, China has made inroads with Aborigines, funding political campaigns and trips, a legislator said Lawmakers have called on the National Security Bureau to investigate claims of pervasive Chinese influence among Aboriginal communities. Legislators pointed to a surge in communist propaganda and Chinese-funded projects over the past few years, which they say are aimed at infiltrating and buying political influence among Aboriginal communities. “China has for decades carried out wide-ranging ‘united front’ tactics and propaganda campaigns targeting Aborigines,” said Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Ying (陳瑩), a member of the Puyuma community in Taitung County. “Now, they are influencing elections for local councilors and village chiefs, offering money for candidates to mount their campaigns, and to
Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group might have lost its right to distribute the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for COVID-19 and the ability to fulfill a contract in Taiwan, civic groups Taiwan Citizen Front and the Economic Democracy Union said yesterday. In a radio interview on Feb. 17, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), head of the Central Epidemic Command Center, said that last year, Taiwan was close to signing a contract to buy doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, but that the deal was halted at the last moment, with some speculating that Chinese interference was to blame. On Monday last week, the center
RSS