Beldare Motors (標達國際汽車), the exclusive distributor of Volkswagen in Taiwan, yesterday confirmed that the German automaker was considering building a production line in Taiwan to manufacture 20,000 cars a year by 2015.
“This investment is part of Beldare’s plan to increase its market share to 15 percent of the local car market,” Beldare public relations manager Nelly Liao (廖英瑛) said by telephone.
Liao said Volkswagen has already captured 16 percent of China’s market and the company aims to become the world’s largest car manufacturer by 2018.
The company is also considering manufacturing cars in Taiwan to expand its domestic presence, Liao said.
Liao’s remark came after local media reported on Wednesday that Su Weiming (蘇偉銘), president of Volkswagen’s Greater China and Southeast Asian operations, talked about the company’s investment plan during a meeting with Minister Without Portfolio Yang Chiu-hsing (楊秋興), Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Woody Duh (杜紫軍) and Industrial Development Bureau Director-General Shen Jung-chin (沈榮津) earlier this month.
Su reportedly asked the government to provide preferential tariff treatment and assistance in acquiring land, with the company needing a 165,000m2 plot in the initial phase for the assembly of 50,000 cars per year.
Shen yesterday said the bureau would help Volkswagen if it decides to build a plant in Taiwan and asks for investment incentives.
“We welcome foreign firms to invest in Taiwan and will definitely provide as many incentives as we can offer to attract more firms to invest in the country and help create jobs,” Shen said by telephone.
Shen said the Cabinet’s Invest-in-Taiwan Service Center had helped many foreign companies invest in Taiwan by providing them with a relatively low corporate income tax rate meeting their land development requirements.
Liao said Volkswagen plans to produce the Sharan, a seven-seater multipurpose vehicle, and the Passat, a large family car, in Taiwan.
The company is likely to expand its capacity to produce 100,000 cars a year after 2015, if it receives a positive reaction from customers and acquires an additional 330,000m2 of land.
For the whole of last year, Beldare, the No. 7 car distributor in Taiwan, sold 13,596 Volkswagen vehicles, up 8.8 percent from 2011 and accounting for 3.7 percent of the total market of 365,871 cars, government data showed.
If Beldare could sell all 20,000 cars it produces locally in a year, its market share would increase to about 9 percent and it would become the fourth-largest car distributor in the nation.
The New Taipei City (新北市) government and several local governments in the south have welcomed Volkswagen’s planned investment, Liao said. However, the final decision will depend on the terms that the government offers, he said.
Volkswagen is still negotiating with the government on lower tariffs for auto parts imports, as well as rent, water and electricity rates, Liao said.
Additional reporting by Helen Ku
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