After surviving the harsh impact of a slow economy and the SARS epidemic in the second quarter, the car industry has placed its hope in an upcoming automobile show to boost business, industry veterans said yesterday.
The 2004 Taipei International Auto Show is scheduled to kick off Jan. 3 and will run until Jan. 11 at Taipei World Trade Center Exhibition Hall. The event will feature 239 new auto models from 34 foreign brands.
The show will also exhibit four types of conceptual cars by Infiniti, Nissan Motor Corp, Toyota Motor Corp and Kia Motors Corp, as well as 38 sport utility vehicle (SUV) and recreational vehicle (RV) models.
"The biennial automobile show is the grandest event in Taiwan's car market," said James Tang, chairman of Taipei Automobile Distributor Association (
"This show's standards and collection of vehicles to be exhibited are able to run neck-to-neck to those of world-renowned exhibitions in Germany and France, and we hope the show can further stimulate the car sales," Tang said.
Twenty-four imported car agents have put forth a total of NT$350 million for the show, aiming to lure an increased number of visitors this year.
"We expect to attract more than 300,000 visitors this year, an increase of 50,000 people from the previous show," Tang said.
In view of the increasing number of female car buyers in recent years, organizers of the event will hold a "Lady's Day" promotion on Jan. 7 allowing female visitors to win spa vouchers through lucky drawings, said Daniel Huang (黃家煌), an official at the association.
Car importers are hoping to use the show to further enhance their customer bases, as sales of imported vehicles have been declining in the face of a strong challenge from domestic car manufacturers in recent years.
"The market share of imported autos has slid from 35 percent down to 15 percent," said Tang, who is also executive vice chairman of Pan German Motors (
Taiwan's accession to the WTO last year did not lend many advantages to imported car makers, due to a slight tariff cut of around only 1.6 percent, the industry veteran said.
"The reduction of tariffs was far too small to make up for foreign exchange fluctuation," Tang added.
Besides, many industries are moving away from Taiwan, which decreases the number of potential car buyers as well, he said.
Sales of new cars -- including both domestic and imported models -- exceeded 390,000 units as of Dec. 10, an increase of 8.8 percent from a year earlier, said Kiven Kuan (
Hotai is the local distributor of Toyota and Lexus brand cars.
Sales of new cars are expected to exceed more than 400,000 cars this year, he added.
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