The government is considering prohibiting the sales of Tsingtao beer from China, two days after it stopped the local agent of the Chinese brewery from running ads on local radio and television stations, officials said yesterday.
"I have asked the Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corp [TTL, 台灣菸酒公司] and relevant departments to study whether to allow the sales of Tsingtao beer in Taiwan," Minister of Finance Lin Chuan (林全) said.
His comment came after demand by DPP lawmakers that the ministry ban sales of the beer in retaliation of Beijing's barring Taiwan from marketing its popular Taiwan Beer in China under its original brand name.
"Our application for the marketing of Taiwan Beer has twice been rejected by Chinese authorities," DPP Legislator Lin Chung-mao (
The board has only been allowed to market its popular beer under the name TTL since it started selling the beer in China last year.
Lin Chung-mao said China has also banned the sales of Kinmen Kaoliang liquor and these actions show that Chinese authorities will not allow the sales of Taiwanese products with Taiwan in their name.
"It is highly unfair for us to agree to the import of mainland beers with Chinese areas' titles, such as Tsingtao Beer and Yenjing Beer," the lawmaker said.
The lawmaker asked that the TTL resolves the issue by next month or he would initiate a motion to sack the company's chairman Morgan Huang (
Minister Lin said it is China's law that no territorial titles can be used to name products imported to China and there is little the ministry can do to make Beijing change its law.
He said under the circumstances, he would ask government officials to study the possibility of barring Tsingtao Beer from being marketed domestically.
The Government Information Office has recently banned Tsingtao Brewery from making TV and radio commercials on the ground that the Legislative Yuan has yet to pass the revision of the Statute Governing the Relations between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area(台灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) which requires prior regulatory approval for any ads broadcasting Chinese products.
The brewery's local agent, Taiwan Tsing Beer Corp (台灣青啤), cried foul, saying the ad ban was related to Beijing's rejection of the marketing of Taiwan Beer. Taiwan Tsing Beer is a unit of Taiwan-based Sanyo Whisbih Group (三洋維士比).
Since it entered the Taiwanese market last year, Tsingtao Beer has gained about 10 percent of the beer market, earning NT$2 billion (US$57.14 million).
Three experts in the high technology industry have said that US President Donald Trump’s pledge to impose higher tariffs on Taiwanese semiconductors is part of an effort to force Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to the negotiating table. In a speech to Republicans on Jan. 27, Trump said he intends to impose tariffs on Taiwan to bring chip production to the US. “The incentive is going to be they’re not going to want to pay a 25, 50 or even a 100 percent tax,” he said. Darson Chiu (邱達生), an economics professor at Taichung-based Tunghai University and director-general of
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) is reportedly making another pass at Nissan Motor Co, as the Japanese automaker's tie-up with Honda Motor Co falls apart. Nissan shares rose as much as 6 percent after Taiwan’s Central News Agency reported that Hon Hai chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) instructed former Nissan executive Jun Seki to connect with French carmaker Renault SA, which holds about 36 percent of Nissan’s stock. Hon Hai, the Taiwanese iPhone-maker also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), was exploring an investment or buyout of Nissan last year, but backed off in December after the Japanese carmaker penned a deal
‘LEGACY CHIPS’: Chinese companies have dramatically increased mature chip production capacity, but the West’s drive for secure supply chains offers a lifeline for Taiwan When Powerchip Technology Corp (力晶科技) entered a deal with the eastern Chinese city of Hefei in 2015 to set up a new chip foundry, it hoped the move would help provide better access to the promising Chinese market. However, nine years later, that Chinese foundry, Nexchip Semiconductor Corp (合晶集成), has become one of its biggest rivals in the legacy chip space, leveraging steep discounts after Beijing’s localization call forced Powerchip to give up the once-lucrative business making integrated circuits for Chinese flat panels. Nexchip is among Chinese foundries quickly winning market share in the crucial US$56.3 billion industry of so-called legacy
WASHINGTON POLICY: Tariffs of 10 percent or more and other new costs are tipped to hit shipments of small parcels, cutting export growth by 1.3 percentage points The decision by US President Donald Trump to ban Chinese companies from using a US tariff loophole would hit tens of billions of dollars of trade and reduce China’s economic growth this year, according to new estimates by economists at Nomura Holdings Inc. According to Nomura’s estimates, last year companies such as Shein (希音) and PDD Holdings Inc’s (拼多多控股) Temu shipped US$46 billion of small parcels to the US to take advantage of the rule that allows items with a declared value under US$800 to enter the US tariff-free. Tariffs of 10 percent or more and other new costs would slash such
RSS