AmCham arrow Publications arrow Topics Archive arrow Topics Archive 2003 arrow Vol.33- No.10 arrow Issues: Time for a Follow Up
Issues: Time for a Follow Up PDF Print E-mail

This section is devoted to updated information on some of the Issues items covered in recent months.

 

* Unsolicited proposals ("Ask and Probably Ye Shall Receive," November 2002). When the government last year passed a new amendment making it feasible for private contractors to propose public projects instead of passively waiting for tender announcements, France's Vivendi Water (now Veolia Water) became the first case, with a proposal to the Kaohsiung City Government for a waste water treatment facility. That test case, watched by many multinational corporations, was not successful. After eight months of negotiations, Kaohsiung has now notified the company that its proposal has been rejected. During a get-together with foreign journalists in August, Kaohsiung Mayor Frank Hsieh hinted at that outcome when he said that civil servants in his government, unaccustomed to negotiating with the private sector, had several times asked him to revert to a straight tendering process.

* Tatan LNG tender ("Terminal Case," January 2003). The ripples are still being felt from the award in July of the Taiwan Power Company's LNG supply contract to another state-owned company, the Chinese Petroleum Corp. (CPC). Several prominent multinationals that had set up offices in Taiwan and invested in the time and resources to participate in energy tenders have now decided to pull out to concentrate on other markets. Critics of the Tatan tender note that the project award will serve to enhance the monopoly position of a state enterprise that is slated to be privatized in order to promote greater market competition.

* Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII) status ("Non-converging Tracks," April 2003). From the beginning of October, the government has scrapped the 12-year-old QFII system, which limited each overseas financial institution to a portfolio of Taiwan shares worth under US$3 billion. The step also dismantles the complicated registration process that required an onerous level of documentation. The liberalization was aimed at boosting foreign investment in the local securities market (and possibly raising stock prices in the run-up to the March presidential election).

* Duracell look-alikes ("Is It the Real Thing?," May 2003). Kuomintang legislator Hsu Chung-hsiung called a press conference in early October to criticize the government for allowing the import of large quantities of dry-cell batteries from China on the grounds that their high mercury content endangers the environment. He showed reporters samples of such batteries, all of which mimicked the appearance of Duracell's gold and black design. But if anything was said about this violation of the company's "trade dress," which is registered with the Ministry of Economic Affairs, it did not get mentioned in the next day's newspaper accounts.

* Establishing a National Communications Commission ("Getting Organized," May 2003). The Cabinet has sent a draft bill to the Legislative Yuan calling for the creation of a body modeled on the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. The National Communications Commission would take over regulatory functions currently divided between the Government Information Office and the Directorate General of Telecommunications under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications. That division has increasingly engendered confusion in the marketplace. A preparatory office has already been set up pending passage of the enabling legislation.

* Advertising made-in-China products ("All Because of a Beer," July 2003). After months of lost sales by some major companies due to the government's prohibition on placing advertising in the Taiwan media for certain products imported from China, the Mainland Affairs Council in early October provided relief through a directive excluding multinational corporations from the ban. Shortly thereafter, the problem was resolved more formally when new legislation was passed to legitimize the advertising of Chinese goods.
 
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