Wednesday, December 21, 2011

2012 ELECTIONS: Tsai calls for a renewed focus on LED industry

GLOWING REVIEW:Tsai said that as the LED sector looks to develop, it could learn from the bicycle industry, which has done much to improve its global competitiveness
By Chris Wang  /  Staff Reporter

The LED industry should be one of the nation’s strategic industries and the government should play a lead role in helping the industry with integration and marketing, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday in Miaoli.

If elected next month, her administration would actively engage in assisting the industry with its vertical integration and the elimination of trade barriers to improve its global competitiveness, Tsai said on the first of her five-day visit to local industrial centers.

Tsai expressed confidence in the LED industry’s global competitiveness when she visited Excellence Optoelectronics Inc, which is located in the Jhunan Science Park in Miaoli County.

However, she said that only 30,000 of the country’s 1.5 million street lights had been replaced with LED bulbs during the past three years, which means the government had not done enough to create a domestic market for manufacturers or to phase out traditional bulbs.

Taiwanese LED companies could learn from the bicycle industry, which underwent a successful vertical integration and invested many resources in research and development to improve its global competitiveness, she said.

She also encouraged the industry to adopt international standards, rather than simply using China’s industry standards, to improve its global position and benefit the long-term development of its products.

Tsai highlighted a key part of her economic policy, which is the establishment of a professional and effective negotiation team to help Taiwanese businesses eliminate trade barriers overseas and explore new markets.

In Hsinchu, the heart of the nation’s information and communication technology development sector, Tsai said, Taiwan should continue to make use of its celebrated technological prowess and, at the same time, integrate technology, culture and humanity, so that technological development could further benefit people’s well-being.

She is scheduled to visit the Youth Industrial Park in Taoyuan County today.

In response to questions about the ongoing Yu Chang Biologics Co case, in which the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has accused her of improperly profiting from the formation of Yu Chang — now known as TaiMed Biologics Co — when she served as vice premier in 2007, Tsai said she had offered a “thorough explanation” and had nothing more to say.

The presidential campaign “should go back to the arena of policy discussions,” she said.