Encouraging progress has been made on a number of fronts over the past half year. At this half-way point in the AmCham Taipei annual advocacy cycle that begins with issuance of the Taiwan White Paper in early June, Taiwan Business TOPICS customarily reviews the status of White Paper issues over the previous six months. This…
Surprisingly, the weakest performance this year is in the Trading Across Borders category. The recently released 2016 edition of the World Bank’s 13th annual Doing Business survey shows Taiwan (or “Taiwan, China” as the World Bank insists on calling it) doing rather well, ranking in 11th place out of the 189 economies included. But Taiwan…
Government discusses proposed amendments to the law with foreign chambers. For cosmetics manufacturers, one of the frustrations of operating in the Taiwan market has been the strict control over the advertising of their products. Before any ad can be aired or published, it needs to receive approval from a government reviewer, usually within a local…
A contest sponsored by Ford Motor is seeking ideas for expediting travel between Taipei and Yilan. In the latest initiative in its Innovate Mobility Challenge to help solve knotty transportation problems in markets around the world, the Ford Motor Co. has launched a public competition to stimulate ideas for moving people more efficiently between Taipei…
A new association has been established to speak for industry on this vital topic. The ability to protect proprietary technology against misappropriation by competitors is of utmost importance to the kinds of high-tech manufacturing industries critical to Taiwan’s economic success. Both multinational and domestic companies operating here have suffered from attempts by unethical rivals in…
From her base in Washington, D.C., Xiaobing Feng, regional manager for Asia of The Advocacy Center under the Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration, recently spent several weeks in Taiwan looking at opportunities for increased participation by American companies in Taiwan’s government procurement. In 2014, U.S. companies won 179 contracts worth US$276 million out of…
Should dishwashing detergent be governed by the food safety law? Should marketing surveys for cosmetics require approval by an independent review board? Through the annual Taiwan White Paper and other channels, AmCham Taipei has sought to call attention to laws and regulations that, while well-intended, have the inadvertent consequence of impairing Taiwan’s economic competitiveness and…
The upcoming TIFA meeting is seen as a good chance to show commitment to liberalization. This year’s AmCham Taipei Doorknock delegation to Washington D.C. found itself in the U.S. capital during a momentous week that included two historic Supreme Court decisions (upholding “Obamacare” and legalizing single-sex marriages nationwide) and – more germane to the Chamber’s…
The latest annual USTR report provides an item-by-item update on the status of trade issues. Each year at the end of March, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) issues a National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers, assessing the state of market access for American goods and services in countries around the…
In its Taiwan White Paper submissions in recent years, AmCham Taipei’s Technology Committee has called on the government to better define the scope and limitation of damages and service-level penalties, as well as to determine the copyright ownership of vendor proposals based on the nature of the project. After numerous discussions, the government has now…
