The MOEA (經濟部) signed an agreement with German-based CETECOM yesterday to build a mobile phone testing center in Taiwan, paving the way for the nation's handset manufacturers to speed their products to market.
Under the current system, local cell phone producers are forced to ship handsets to Europe to be inspected, raising costs and slowing the products' market entry.
CETECOM president Ivo Rauh said the new testing center would increase productivity by allowing handset manufacturers to get their product to market "30 to 40 percent" faster.
According to Lee Kun-yao (
According to MOEA Vice Minister Yin Chi-ming (
"The testing center announced today will initially provide testing services for GSM and Bluetooth," he said, also pointing out that the MOEA plans to establish a new company to invest further in third generation (3G) high speed mobile Internet connections.
The MOEA has already allocated NT$63.4 million to four local companies to boost their drives into 3G mobile communication products and services. Included among those firms are Quanta Computer (廣達), which received funding of NT$21.7 million for the development of a three-band GPRS mobile handset technology.
The new testing center and MOEA investment initiative pay testimony to the growing importance of Taiwan's mobile phone manufacturing capability. According to the Institute for Information Industry (III, 資策會) Market Intelligent Center (MIC), Taiwan's meager 1998 mobile phone production figures of 35,000 handsets -- valued at US$6 million -- shot up in 1999 to 2.8 million units with a total value of US$116 million.
In 2000, the MIC predicts roughly 11 million units will be produced but that figure is way off forecasts given by some of Taiwan's top manufacturers. ACM (Acer) alone expects to make over 10 million mobile phones in 2000, Dialer & Business Electronics Co (大霸), 7.5 million units and GVC Corp (致福), four million.
In addition, a host of newcomers moved into wireless handset manufacturing this year, including, Arima (
According to Rauh, the proposed center will open in the first quarter of 2001.
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