After two years of the COVID-19 pandemic and the world grappling with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that began on February 24, supply chain disruptions that have derailed many industries are forecasted to continue well into 2022, amid a myriad of trends and problems. In this section, we discuss industry trends in three main areas. Auto Parts Auto parts, or more specifically, aftermarket (AM)...

Industries are focusing on new technologies for better environmental sustainability and to promote the overall protection and safety of consumers. The same is trending in Taiwan's hardware and plumbing sector. Companies and consumers are becoming more and more aware of the long-term impact of pollutive materials on natural resources, and as policies and regulations are changed in other crucial ma...

Japanese automotive brand Toyota's recent announcement of reducing production in March due to chip shortages is another setback for the company, as this would not be its first time scaling back capacity in the past two years. Earlier, Toyota had also announced that the chip shortages had slashed the group's production goals from April to June. However, Economic Daily News points out that Toyot...

Top automotive electronic suppliers and Taiwan's leading R&D center in autonomous technology and testing, Automotive Research and Testing Center (ARTC), collectively announced the formation of the “Automotive AI Imagery Chip and Smart Cockpit Display Module Industry Alliance" on March 18. Representatives from Elan Microelectronics, AU Optronics, Chimei Motor, China Motor, RAC Electric Vehicles...

1. Foxconn MIH Alliance Sees Over Hundreds of Japanese Suppliers Join Foxconn's foray into the electric vehicle industry is seeing big gains, as The Nikkei reported that notable Japanese brands like Toyota, and auto part supplier Denso, which has invested in TSMC's Kumamoto factory project, are all slated to join Foxconn's MIH Alliance initiative. Other benchmark Japanese suppliers, such as Ho...

Despite the National Development Council (NDC) announcing a slight drop of the economy's composite index of economic indicators for Taiwan for January on Tuesday, overall signals indicate a strong market and investments performance. The index fell two points from 38 to 36 between December 2021 and January, sitting in the yellow-red range on the council's five-color rating system, with "blue" i...

The COVID-19 pandemic's disruption on the economy has propelled the lesser-known aspects of the global supply chain into mainstream awareness, such as the focus on Taiwan as semiconductor chip demands soared. While Taiwan is more widely known as the semiconductor hub of the world, equally crucial to keeping the world's economy running are hand tools. The island's hand tools sector is a centralize...

The global trade exhibition industry has seen its most turbulent period in the past two years, brought to an abrupt halt by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, seen further setbacks in 2021, and it's expected to continue into 2022, though to a lesser degree, as the industry expects in-person events to open gradually. In an early December press release from 2021, globally-renowned event organizer Me...

The domestic container shipping industry believes that the container ship market is still experiencing difficulties as Asian countries enter the Year of the Tiger. The current information obtained by domestic companies is that the port congestion situation in the U.S. is still difficult and unlikely to lessen in the short term. Fortunately, shipping prices were able to experience a brief repr...

In the past two years, the global COVID-19 outbreak has caused major international exhibitions to be canceled one after another, prompting waves of changes needed to overhaul the marketing model of traditional physical exhibitions. In the past, many international buyers mainly sought overseas potential partners and agency brands by participating in major international exhibitions. However, as...