Hyundai Motor Co, Korea's largest automaker, will allow Taiwan's Sanyang Industrial Co (
Honda, Japan's second-largest automaker, severed ties with Sanyang in January to set up its own Taiwan subsidiary to sell automobiles.
Japan's second-largest automaker will initially spend NT$170 million to set up the subsidiary with operations beginning in March, said Satoshi Toshida (
Toshida declined to spell out the reason for the break-up at a press conference held in Taipei, saying only that the new firm will "reduce production costs" and "increase competitiveness."
But Honda may have pulled out because of Sanyang's decision to buy three vehicle companies in China and Vietnam in 2000 from parent ChinFon Group (
"Sanyang will stop making Honda automobiles after our parts inventory is diminished, but Hyundai will revive us," spokesman Yeh Fong-ming (
Sanyang plans to convert its production lines to Hyundai's specifications by September and produce 4,000 Hyundai cars this year, Yeh said. Sanyang plans to produce about 6,000 Honda cars this year, compared with 17,000 in 2001.
Honda last accounted for about 6 percent of Taiwan's vehicle market, including cars imported from Japan.
Amid the nation's worst recession on record, Taiwan's automobile market contracted a sharp 17.4 percent last year, with about 347,433 cars sold, down from more than 420,467 the previous year, local media reported, citing statistics from the Ministry of Transportation and Communications.
While some industry experts have expressed optimism that sales would recover in the third quarter of the year if the domestic economy rebounds, consumers may remain cautious, said Jeffrey Shen (
"Our studies found that sales will be about 350,000 units this year," Shen told the Taipei Times during an interview in early March.
In his National Day Rally speech on Sunday, Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) quoted the Taiwanese song One Small Umbrella (一支小雨傘) to describe his nation’s situation. Wong’s use of such a song shows Singapore’s familiarity with Taiwan’s culture and is a perfect reflection of exchanges between the two nations, Representative to Singapore Tung Chen-yuan (童振源) said yesterday in a post on Facebook. Wong quoted the song, saying: “As the rain gets heavier, I will take care of you, and you,” in Mandarin, using it as a metaphor for Singaporeans coming together to face challenges. Other Singaporean politicians have also used Taiwanese songs
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CLAMPING DOWN: At the preliminary stage on Jan. 1 next year, only core personnel of the military, the civil service and public schools would be subject to inspections Regular checks are to be conducted from next year to clamp down on military personnel, civil servants and public-school teachers with Chinese citizenship or Chinese household registration, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday. Article 9-1 of the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) stipulates that Taiwanese who obtain Chinese household registration or a Chinese passport would be deprived of their Taiwanese citizenship and lose their right to work in the military, public service or public schools, it said. To identify and prevent the illegal employment of holders of Chinese ID cards or
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