The use of parallel imported kerosene heaters could result in accidents or fires due to appliance malfunction caused by voltage incompatibility, two elected officials said recently as they urged the Ministry of Economic Affairs to inspect such products.
The WTO defines a parallel import as a non-counterfeit product manufactured overseas and imported without the consent of the intellectual property right owner. Such imports are also commonly referred to as “gray products.”
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chen Ou-po (陳歐珀) and Hualien County Councilor Liu Hsiao-mei (劉曉玫) told a press conference last week that despite becoming increasingly popular, kerosene heaters are still not subjected to adequate inspections.
Liu cited the case of a Hualien resident who bought a kerosene heater with a three-year warranty and discovered that it was a parallel import when she tried to have the machine fixed by the dealer and was refused.
The citizen was told by a maintenance technician that the heater broke because, having been manufactured in Japan, it was designed to be plugged into 100-volt sockets, not the 110-volt outlets used in Taiwan, Liu said, adding that the difference may have caused a fire.
Many stores sell gray kerosene heaters at lower prices and without official warranties, but even those sold by official vendors are not submitted to comprehensive examinations, Chen said, adding that the ministry’s Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection should list the heaters as imports requiring inspection.
Chin Te-li (秦德禮), who works as an engineer for a local dealer, said it is difficult to tell a parallel imported product from an official one just from the packaging, “so consumers need to look closely at the heater’s product information label and its manual, as official imports will bear labels written in Chinese.”
“Consumers should also note the heater’s voltage rating, since official imports would conform to the nation’s 110-volt electricity outlets,” he added.
Chin estimated that gray heaters account for about 10 percent of the total market, primarily because they are typically priced about 20 percent to 30 percent cheaper than their officially imported counterparts.
“To reduce the risk of heater malfunction, consumers can use a transformer when plugging in a parallel imported heater,” he said, but added that because these products are intended for long-term use, the safest option would be to only use products that have been officially customized to be operated in Taiwan.
In response to Chen’s and Liu’s suggestion, bureau official Lin Hui-hsun (林輝壎) said that given the risk of fire from appliance malfunction due to voltage incompatibility, the bureau would consider requiring imported kerosene heaters to undergo inspection after the bureau has had consultations with specialists and conducted a market survey on the matter.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift