Business as usual for Taiwan firms in Kunshan
Retracted anti-pollution measures leave manufacturers in limbo
Employees at several subsidiaries of Taiwan-based manufacturers in Kunshan, East China’s Jiangsu Province, said that their businesses were operating as usual, at least for now, as the local government delayed an order to some factories to suspend production for environmental reasons.
Fast food maker Uni-president China Holdings received a government order to halt production, but the order was temporarily rescinded and business was not affected, company representative Chen Wei told the Global Times on Thursday.
An employee from Taiwan-based resistor maker Wangquan Science (Kunshan) Corp, which had also been on the list of companies ordered to halt production by Kunshan local government, said that business was proceeding as usual.
“We are not feeling uneasy about the order,” the employee said.
Electronics maker Foxconn, which has Kunshan subsidiaries, declined to comment when contacted by the Global Times.
According to a report on Singapore-based zaobao.com on Wednesday, Kunshan ordered around 270 companies, including Foxconn, to suspend production from December 25 to January 10 to reduce pollution of the Wusong River.
About half of these companies are Taiwan-based, but the government has since decided to temporarily postpone the order, the report said.
Neither Kunshan government nor the local environmental protection bureau could be reached for comment on Thursday.
A representative from a Kunshan subsidiary of Haosheng Fabrics Company, also Taiwanbased, told the Global Times on Thursday that the local government had tightened environmental protection requirements around February 2017, forcing the company to shift its focus from fabric-making to house rentals in September.
“If policies tighten further, we might also have to take some measures,” Chen said, adding that if production in Kunshan stopped, the company still had product stock in East China’s Anhui and Zhejiang provinces. “We always support government policy,” he said.
The Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council noted on Wednesday that the Kunshan production suspension order had not yet been implemented, and hoped that Taiwan-based companies would understand the local government’s commitment to combating pollution.
Apart from Kunshan, other cities are speeding up efforts to fight pollution.
The local government of Zhuhai, South China’s Guangdong Province, also ordered a number of manufacturers to suspend production from Tuesday to Friday, an official from Zhuhai environmental protection bureau told the Global Times on Thursday.