A Taipei-based US business group said yesterday that the impact of Taiwan signing the WTO’s Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) on business was still unclear.
The American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in Taipei said in the latest edition of its monthly publication Topics that following Taiwan’s July 15 entry as the 41st member of the GPA, “multinational companies appear to remain somewhat skeptical about how much Taiwan’s GPA membership will in fact improve their market access.”
Besides the limited degree of English-language information being provided, another major concern is the limited amount of time allotted to prepare a bid — particularly when translation of documents is needed, the AmCham article said.
In particular, companies are given no more than 24 days to prepare a proposal, which the article says is already tight even when days are not lost because of US holidays.
TIMING
International bidders have requested that more time be allowed, as they need to gather documents and certificates from other governments to attest to their previous project experience and have the documents notarized, it said.
An AmCham member company in the engineering field reported another obstacle that prevented it from bidding in a recent infrastructure tender — a requirement that vendors prove that they have professionally licensed engineers on their staff from 12 different engineering disciplines, even though some of those specialties are totally unrelated to the project, AmCham said.
TALENT
The same requirement applies to local companies, but large domestic engineering companies usually employ a broad spectrum of talent, it said.
As such, whether or not the intention was discriminatory, the result was to keep foreign companies from competing for contracts, AmCham said.
“Due to these kinds of disadvantages, many multinational companies have yet to be convinced that Taiwan is abiding by the spirit as well as the letter of the GPA in opening up its procurement market,” AmCham said.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors
RSS