DOT Director Wang Lauds DIT Platform for Taking Taiwan-made Products Global

Wang Pai-por, director general, Department of Commerce (DOT) of the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), recently visited Taiwan-based China Economics News Service (CENS), the publisher of the DIT (Design & Innovation in Taiwan) magazine as well as a 34-year veteran in trade-promotional media, publishing in print and online news and supplier information targeting the automotive, motorcycle, machinery, hardware, furniture, and lighting markets.

Officially subsidized to publish its brainchild, the DIT magazine, CENS has done a remarkable job to tap the potential of DIT as part of its comprehensive trade-promotion platform to upgrade the global competitiveness of traditional industries in Taiwan. In fact CENS has been winning increasing attention for its outstanding capability to help Taiwan-based traditional industries to go global, promote worldwide products designed and made in Taiwan, and set up a global trade platform for local suppliers and global buyers.

CENS has been chosen as one of the most successful of 120 private companies in Taiwan to have been subsidized by the MOEA's "Assist Service Sector Technology Development Project," which aims to upgrade the international competitiveness of the local service sector.

A special interview with Wang saw the director general outline the project policies and highly praise CENS' effort to set up the DIT platform.

Assist Service Sector Technology Development Project

Wang said that the service sector has been contributing increasingly higher proportions to Taiwan's gross domestic product (GDP), especially in recent years; so the government recognized the sector as a driving force behind the island's economic development.

To facilitate the successful execution of the Challenge 2008: National Development Plan (since 2002), the Assist Service Sector Technology Development Project has been aiming to encourage the service sector to invest more resources in R&D to innovate more new service products, operation modes, marketing modes, technologies for new business applications etc., with subsidies granted to the wholesale, retail, logistic, F&B, management consultant, international trade, e-commerce, conference/exhibition, advertisement, commercial design, and chain-store franchise sectors.

"Through the service sector project," Wang pointed out, "MOEA expects to see rising motivation in the local service sector to engage in more independent R&D, innovation, and new business types, which are expected to build more successful business models and further strengthen core competitiveness for the whole sector."

Targeted at the ultimate goal of upgrading competitiveness of the whole service sector," the project was planned to be executed in four years and three stages, including setting up related standards in the first, knowledge spreading in the second, and alliance/cross-industry partnership setting in the final stage.

Over the past two years, MOEA has spent about NT$372.3 million (US$12.2 million) to subsidize qualified applicants in the project, sparking NT$672.7 million (US$22.1 million) R&D spending by the applicants. Some 867 companies applied for such subsidies, 287 of whom has been granted.

Backed by official resource injection, Wang claimed, in the past two years five new companies were set up, 38 new brands created, 59 operation points established, and 22 new franchised stores opened. In addition, the applicants won 27 new patents and adopted 39 technologies from local and foreign partners.

DIT's Role

"I am very happy to see the successful establishment of the DIT platform by CENS," Wang said. "Long ago, most small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in traditional industries in Taiwan had strong technical capability, quality products, but lacked similar capacities to package, promote themselves globally. The DIT platform, a really innovative international trade-promotion mechanism, makes reality the global marketing of Taiwan-made high-quality, competitive products. Furthermore, the DIT magazine features beautiful layout and ample contents as well as the brand-new idea among local counterparts to introduce advertisers' corporate operation, strengths, core competitiveness, and products all in one package, which is interlinked with the B2B website to enable global buyers to easily find quality suppliers and targeted items."

"The DIT platform has generated many positive effects to promote made-in-Taiwan products worldwide," Wang continued, "and we hope to see more functions created from such platform, including also technical and know-how transactions in the future."

For CENS, a company with a long history of about 35 years and around 200 employees, Wang commented, its is more difficult and complicated to innovate than younger and smaller firms. "But seeing CENS achieve the unexpected," the director general said, "I am inspired to see its boldness to take on new challenges which are expected to help Taiwan suppliers find new niches for their products."

Wang suggested that CENS further strengthen the DIT platform by introducing, for example, customer relationship management (CRM) mechanisms, to provide specialized services for enhanced business-matching function.