Taiwanese automaker China Motor Corp. (CMC), the local assembler of Mitsubishis, recently announced its launch soon of a own-branded electric-scooter in the first half for sale locally and overseas. CMC's domestic automobile sales also reported good performance. According to the latest statistics of new-car sales in Taiwan, the company enjoyed a 43.3% year-on-year (YoY) shipment increase ...

Taiwan-made furniture never made much of a hit in the European design market until the emergence of the “Yii” brand, which was debuted at the Milan International Furniture Fair (MIFF) 2009. The new brand had an even more successful presence at this year’s MIFF, which was held on April 14-19. During the six-day fair Yii-branded products stole the spotlight and gained high praises from professional...

Taiwan is home to a number of non-profit institutions that are devoted to the development of creative cultural products. Many of these are furniture and furnishing items which are closely associated with the daily lives of the people, and represent the lifestyles and tastes of the users. The Chinese Foundation for Digitalization Technology, which uses the “CMEX” logo, focuses on promoting the...

Fabrics are vital materials for the furniture industry, which uses changes in print, pattern, and color, along with strengthened functions, to forge new fashions in interior design. Besides making spaces look more colorful, fabrics also generate a cozy atmosphere which other furniture materials can hardly match. “Fabrics are an important element in interior design,” said Jane Lin of Arche, a comp...

While occasional reports point to a slow recovery in the global economy, recent news from the U.S. say that the American economy is still being held back by near-ten-percent unemployment, hesitant consumer spending and a massive middle who are working double-time to stay solvent. Other negative factors include a severe budget cut in England, the credit crisis in Greece, sky-high unemployment in S...

The American Chamber of Commerce head in China said on TV recently that the emerging nation’s economic growth is on a steady uptrend, where its size was a mere thirtieth of America’s some years ago, but now has grown to an eighth. And China’s new car market exceeded the American counterpart in volume in 2009; while wages in IT and automotive factories in southern China have been raised recently. ...

Fireplace Media Units Do Double Duty By Heath E. Combs Fireplace media units, by virtue of their name, can literally be described as hot items. In recent years they’ve come into their own as home entertainment pieces, going from free standing fireplaces to being offered as part of console unit. The pieces do well at big-box stores and also are popular at smaller retailers. One reason is th...

While the global economy continues to recover, albeit upset by occasional blips as the Greek debt crisis, sectors as PCs, LCD TVs and consumer electronics are also returning to pre-meltdown levels. But one cannot generalize about the fate of most Taiwanese furniture and parts makers for different reasons. One factor missing in the faster recovery of furniture and parts makers in Taiwan is the lac...

A typical, slightly disheartening tale surrounds Taiwan’s central counties of Taichung and Changhua, where many of the furniture hardware makers saw prosperous times for a while after the island’s export-dependent economy took off in the 1960s. But changing times as rising competition from emerging economies, higher labor cost in Taiwan cast shadow over the golden era in the 1990s, when most furn...

The massive outflow of Taiwan's furniture manufacturers over the past two decades has drastically changed the landscape of the sector, forcing many to come up with more creative solutions to better compete globally. Some of the makers are going upmarket, building unique, high quality pieces, ones with higher margins, to take on the undersellers from Southeast Asia and China. The general...