With the easing political tension across the Straits, the trade between Taiwan and China is going well gradually. Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) comes into force officially this year, which includes pliers, wrenches, hammers, and screwdrivers in the early harvest list, Taiwan’s export of these products to China in the future will be more competitive than other same level of products from Europe, the U.S., Korea, and Japan and the export value is expected to increase. Chairman of Taiwan Hand Tool Manufacture’s Association (also President of Yih Cheng Factory Co., Ltd.) said, the association will try hard to seek for the total inclusion of all hand tools in the list of tariff reduction and enter the market in China progressively.

“Innovation” and “integration” have been the issues and challenges for the hardware industry across the Straits. He thinks, China has become a big consumer rather than a manufacturer. The subscription of ECFA is favorable to Taiwan, for it can utilize the advantage of “tax-free” to enter China and companies of Taiwan can actively cooperate with distributors in China to strengthen their presence. They can also use the image of “high quality at low price” to enter the market and use China as a step stone for entering the markets in India and other new emerging ASEAN markets. “This year we aim at developing Chinese market and expect to enter India by 2012.” Lin will lead Taiwanese hand tool companies to share this big pie.

Entering the Market First, and the Brand

In order to increase the awareness of Taiwanese hand tools, Chairman Lin (stepping on in September 2010) makes his efforts to plan and promote Taiwanese hand tools to China through the cooperation with associations and industries. He said, under the influences of counterfeiting and the insufficient understanding of Taiwanese companies about China, the development of China’s market has to rely on the cooperation across the Straits. So far, THTMA has established a platform with other associations and kept cooperating with other hardware magazines for news exchange and seminar holdings, increasing a firm base of confidence. It also organizes factory tours for Taiwanese and Chinese hardware companies to visit each other. Lin described the way Taiwan hardware industry is going after entering China and said “we should seek for entering the market first, once we have entered the market, we can utilize the difference and niche of our products to gain the business opportunities in China.”

Emphasizing on Technology and Establishing Recognition of “MIT”

In addition to regarding China as its target market, THTMA also leads many companies to participate in international exhibitions (at least 10 exhibitions per year) and will install a well designed pavilion for Taiwanese hand tool exhibitors at every exhibition, which greatly helps Taiwanese companies develop their market around the world. As for the training of talents, Lin pointed, considering that many companies have begun to be taken over by the second generation and in order to introduce new ideas of R&D into the industry, THTMA sets partnership with Tunghai University to set up courses of “Strategic Utilization for High Level CEOs” and “Training for Leading Capability of Basic Cadres” and invites famous lecturers to share their experience, which is expected to increase the quality of manpower in the industry to maintain their competitiveness through the absorption of new ideas.

In the end, Lin thinks that the advantage of Taiwan is its technology and the low price strategy hasn’t been the main strategy of Taiwanese companies anymore. In the future, Taiwanese companies should focus on the high-end products, be more innovative, reinforce the development of new materials, cultivate more R&D talents, and improve the processes, etc., so that they can establish their recognition beneficial to the long-run development of Taiwan hardware industry. He also calls for the government to speed up the pace to make free trade agreements with other countries because when Japan, Korea, and China continue to make agreements with other countries in Asia, ASEAN area, or other else, the advantage of Taiwan will become smaller and the threat will become larger.