As more and more Taiwanese shift to online shopping, traditional merchants are losing business. Not long ago, I visited Taipei’s camera district in search of a Fuji X100T, a compact digital camera capable of producing professional-quality images. The X100T is one of only a few cameras Fuji still manufactures in Japan, and is considered superior…
Though car sales have just started, the company has been sourcing from Taiwan for some time. Last summer, Tesla Motors, the world’s most celebrated electric car maker, finally entered the Taiwan market. The plans were announced to great fanfare on the Fourth of July, and the California-based technology company subsequently opened a pop-up store at…
The Taipei city government is trying a number of different methods to relieve the chronic parking problem. Given the serious shortage of parking spaces that has contributed to chronic traffic chaos, the Taipei city government has been striving to expand the number of parking lots, while also increasing the utilization efficiency of existing facilities and…
SUVs and imported luxury cars provided much of the market momentum. For Taiwan’s automotive sector, 2016 was a year of respectable growth in the face of a challenging economy, with the emergence of new trends and customer preferences. An injection of open-minded young buyers interested in luxury and/or utility is giving further impetus to an…
The domestic companies, which focus mainly on the replacement market, are small but highly efficient producers. Taiwan might be better known for its massive high tech companies such as TSMC, Quanta Computer, and Compal Electronics, but most of Taiwan’s economy is driven by small and medium sized enterprises (SMES) in an array of relatively low-tech…
Faced with a tepid home property market, Taiwan’s life insurers are increasingly investing in high-yield overseas property. Taiwan’s cash-rich life insurers have scant investment opportunities at home, as yield levels have flagged in recent years amidst an overheated property market and weak rental growth. Insurers are constrained by minimum yield requirements set by the Financial…
More can be done, say experts, particularly through government incentives, education, and retrofitting old buildings. Green buildings would seem to be perfect for hot climates. They’re cool (literally) and energy-efficient. They save money and may even contribute to saving the planet. Why then aren’t more of Taiwan’s commercial and domestic buildings green? According to…
Tourism from China buoyed Taiwan’s hotel sector during former President Ma Ying-jeou’s eight years in office, spurring hoteliers to refurbish aging properties and add thousands of new rooms to the market. Resilient demand helped hotels post enviable earnings. That golden era ended swiftly with the inauguration of President Tsai Ing-wen in May. Irked by Tsai’s…
Developers recently have deserted the luxury segment for smaller units with lower selling prices Following a decade or more of booming business, housing construction in Taiwan has been stuck in the throes of a bearish market. Developers have been slashing prices to stimulate demand. As investment-oriented buyers have largely retreated from the market due to…
The Japanese property market is heating up as global buyers show increasing interest in prime areas of Tokyo, the world’s largest metropolitan area. Through May, the number of existing condominiums sold in Tokyo increased by 5.4% to 16,152 units year-on-year, while existing detached house sales rose by 14.3% on an annual basis to 8,224 units,…
