Taiwan curtain producer plans to move to Kingdom from China
SK tightens its export controls on Japan
LEADING Taiwan-based curtain manufacturer and seller Nien Made Enterprise Co Ltd has revealed plans to expand in Cambodia to avoid the fallout from the Sino-US trade war, the Taipei Times reported on Saturday.
A Nien Made Enterprise public relations officer told the Times that the firm will expand its production line in Southeast Asia and will shift orders for finished products from China to Cambodia to avoid the risk of US tariffs.
“The US-China trade dispute has forced us to expand production in Southeast Asia,” he told the Times, adding that Cambodia will offset a labour shortage in China.
Currently, about one-third of the company’s ready-made products, such as blinds, are made in China, but it plans to gradually shift the bulk of its operations to Cambodia over the next few years.
Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC) deputy secretary-general Kaing Monika welcomed the company’s plans. He said the Kingdom needs sustainable private sector development to achieve its economic goals by 2030 and 2050.
“It is good news for Cambodia that there is an increase in investment in the industry and a presence of new products and new investors that can contribute to better economic growth in Cambodia,” he said.
However, he said Cambodia needed to strive even more in a fast-changing, competitive global environment.
“We still have opportunities to improve in terms of business costs, such as the cost in doing business, transportation costs, documents and higher minimum wages,” he said.
Nien Made Enterprise currently operates a window blinds factory in Cambodia.
Taiwan-based Eclat Textile Co, a sportswear supplier to Nike Inc and Lululemon Athletica Inc, is also slated to invest in more facilities in Southeast Asian countries – including Cambodia – as it plans to “move beyond Vietnam” amid heightened risks of US tariffs.
In the first half of this year, the Council for the Development of Cambodia approved 153 investment projects worth around $5.2 billion, an increase of 48 from the same period last year.
According to GMAC, 34 new factories opened in the first half of this year, of which 32 produce travel goods and two footwear. SOUTH KOREA on Monday put Japan into its own new export category as President Moon Jae-in called Tokyo’s latest measures “very serious”, intensifying a trade war between the two neighbours and US allies.
The move came after Seoul announced earlier this month it would remove Tokyo from its list of trusted trading partners, reciprocating an identical decision by Japan.
That followed Tokyo’s imposition of tough restrictions on exports crucial to tech titans such as Samsung following a series of South Korean court rulings ordering Japanese firms to pay for forced labour during World War II.
The dispute has raised concerns over the potential implications for their security cooperation in the face of North Korean missile tests, and the possible impact on global supply chains.
At a meeting with his top aides on Monday, Moon reflected on Japan’s colonisation of the Korean peninsula in the first half of the 20th century to highlight the gravity of the situation.
“As a victim of great suffering from Japanese imperialism in the past, we, for our part, cannot help but take Japan’s ongoing economic retaliation very seriously,” Moon said.
“It is even more so because this economic retaliation is in itself unjustifiable and also has its roots in historical issues,” he added.
Japan insists its latest measures were enforced on national security grounds.
South Korea’s list of trade partners is currently divided into two groups, those who are members of the world’s top four export control agreements and those who are not.
But Seoul’s trade ministry said on Monday it added a new category for countries that had signed the four pacts “but operate an export control system that violates international norms”.
Japan is the only country in the new category.
“Since it’s hard to work closely with a country that frequently violates the basic rules … we need an export control system that addresses this,” South Korean trade minister Sung Yun-mo told reporters.
Sung did not offer examples of such violations by Japan.
The revision will be implemented next month, he said, adding that Seoul was open to negotiations with Tokyo.
Under the new regulations, South Korean firms must submit five documents – from the current three – to win approvals for exporting sensitive items to Japan, with the process taking up to 15 days.