Businesses should mitigate risks by decreasing their dependence on the politically directed and highly uncertain Chinese market, Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corp (TTL) chairman Ting Yen-che (丁彥哲) said yesterday.
Beijing in the middle of last year banned TTL products from being imported in a move that could have caused more damage if the company did not diversify its markets in the past 20 years, he said in an interview with the Liberty Times (the sister newspaper of the Taipei Times).
TTL formerly had a high level of dependence on China and a significant part of its market in China consisted of expatriate Taiwanese businesspeople who wanted to drink Taiwan Beer, Ting said.
Photo: Chen Yi-ling, Taipei TImes
China accounted for 20 percent of TTL’s total sales before declining to a point that Beijing’s import ban had no discernible impact on overseas sales, he said.
TTL had intelligence indicating a need to spread risks and took steps to expand its markets several years prior to the ban, Ting said.
It launched an aggressive effort to expand its presence in Southeast Asia, the US, Japan, South Korea and even the Middle East, largely offsetting the impact of the ban on the company’s sales this year, he said.
Asked to comment on Chinese beer exports to Taiwan, Ting said many US and Japanese brands that sell beer to the nation had moved their production to China to cut costs.
Consumers who feel uneasy about consuming beer made in certain nations should check the nation of origin on product labels before making a purchase, he said.
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
Taiwan’s passport ranked 34th in the world, with access to 141 visa-free destinations, according to the latest update to the Henley Passport Index released today. The index put together by Henley & Partners ranks 199 passports globally based on the number of destinations holders can access without a visa out of 227, and is updated monthly. The 141 visa-free destinations for Taiwanese passport holders are a slight decrease from last year, when holders had access to 145 destinations. Botswana and Columbia are among the countries that have recently ended visa-free status for Taiwanese after “bowing to pressure from the Chinese government,” the Ministry
HEALTHCARE: Following a 2022 Constitutional Court ruling, Taiwanese traveling overseas for six months would no longer be able to suspend their insurance Measures allowing people to suspend National Health Insurance (NHI) services if they plan to leave the country for six months would be abolished starting Dec. 23, NHIA Director-General Shih Chung-liang (石崇良) said yesterday. The decision followed the Constitutional Court’s ruling in 2022 that the regulation was unconstitutional and that it would invalidate the regulation automatically unless the NHIA amended it to conform with the Constitution. The agency would amend the regulations to remove the articles and sections that allow the suspension of NHI services, and also introduce provisional clauses for those who suspended their NHI services before Dec. 23, Shih said. According to
‘GRAY ZONE’ TACTICS: China continues to build up its military capacity while regularly deploying jets and warships around Taiwan, with the latest balloon spotted on Sunday The US is drawing up contingency plans for military deployments in Japan and the Philippines in case of a Taiwan emergency, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported. They would be incorporated in a first joint operation plan to be formulated in December, Kyodo reported late on Sunday, citing sources familiar with Japan-US relations. A US Marine Corps regiment that possesses High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems — a light multiple rocket launcher — would be deployed along the Nansei Island chain stretching from Kyushu to Yonaguni near Taiwan, Kyodo said. According to US military guidelines for dispatching marines in small formations to several locations,
RSS