WEEE rule to push up production costs of Taiwanese electronics suppliers

Taipei, Jan. 10, 2005 (CENS)--Taiwanese electronics manufacturers expect higher costs to hit their productions soon after California State began Jan. 1 to collect US$6-8 Jan. 1 on every monitor and notebook computer sold in the state as deposit for recycling the electronics wastes for suppliers.

The state charges the fee in accordance with the principle of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive, enacted by the European Union. EU will put the rule into effect in August this year.

Leading Taiwanese suppliers of liquid-crystal display (LCD) panels including BenQ pointed out that they would follow regulations implemented by the governments of their markets. Taiwan has been the major supplier of information-technology (IT) products for consumers in the United States and European countries.

Taiwanese suppliers of built-to-order display panels pointed out that the new regulation would impact more on brand-name suppliers than on them as brand-name suppliers should pay the additional fee. They said their costs on developing non-toxic products would eventually past on to brand-name suppliers and end users.

The Taiwan office of the German certification company TUV pointed out that WEEE directive aims at preventing electronics products from wastes by recalling and recycling them. The office's officials said that the directive regulates 10 categories of electronics products, posing it a huge impact to brand-name suppliers of these products.

They added that the California rule, approved in 2003, regulates that retailers in the state is obligated to charge each end user additional US$6 for their procurements of sub-15 inch cathode ray tube-based (CRT-based) display panels or LCD-based display panels from them, additional US$8 for their procurements of the panels ranging from 15 inches to 35 inches and US$10 for their procurements of the panels bigger than 35 inches. The money collected will be used to finance government spending on recycling the wastes.

TVU Taiwan office's executives pointed out that their company has established the capability in detecting WEEE-prohibited toxic substances.