Buyers of ultra-expensive sofas in China are up in arms over the alleged faking of the imported status of their furniture, local media reported yesterday.
Da Vinci, a Singaporean-owned store that has outlets all over China, sells silk-covered sofas, gilded beds and ornate coffee tables for tens of thousands of US dollars.
The firm is accused by Shanghai authorities of falsifying the location in which some of its furniture is made, Chinese state media said.
The investigations into Da Vinci came after China’s national broadcaster CCTV reported on Sunday that some of the furniture labeled as made overseas was in fact manufactured in China’s Guangdong Province, and what the company said was rare wood was in some cases part polymer and other chemicals.
“I am considering returning all furniture and asking for compensation from Da Vinci,” a customer surnamed Ding told the China Daily.
Ding said he had spent nearly 3 million yuan (US$464,570) on furniture from the store.
China, the second-largest economy in the world, is home to 189 billionaires and just under 1 million millionaires. The newly minted are known to book out high-end department stores like Saks Fifth Avenue for private shopping excursions in the US.
The Shanghai Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau, which examined the company’s customs records, said about 10 percent of the products sold as “imported” by Da Vinci were made in China, the Shanghai Daily reported yesterday.
The newspaper said the company marked up the prices of some of its China-made furniture after sending the goods to a free-trade zone in Shanghai, then sending them to its warehouse, labeling them as imported.
The Shanghai Administration for Industry and Commerce said it was probing claims Da Vinci misled consumers about where its products were made and that it would fine the company if it was found guilty.
“We will order Da Vinci to stop selling the relevant products and fine the company if detailed testing reports, which will be released very soon, confirm the initial findings,” spokesman Xu Shang said.
The official investigation had already discovered products on sale for many times their true value, Xu said, including a 92,800 yuan bedstand sold as solid wood, but actually made of fiberboard.
Da Vinci denied the allegations and said all its stated “made in Italy” furniture was imported. The firm declined to comment further.
Da Vinci also has branches in Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Indonesia.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his