Taiwan Today

Co-sponsored by the government and private industrial and business organizations, CETRA is a leader in promoting ROC trade worldwide.

When the China External Trade Development Council was founded with a tiny staff of twelve in 1970, few people foresaw what it has become today ─ a huge and sophisticated organi­zation with more than seven hundred employees working at the heart of Tai­wan's trade and industry, and reaching around the world as well. It is now widely known as CETRA, and is unques­tionably Taiwan's foremost trade promo­tion body. It provides comprehensive services for both local and foreign busi­nessmen, and also operates the Taipei World Trade Center (TWTC), a mag­nificent facility which has become a model for world trade centers in other countries.

CETRA has proved adept at chang­ing over the years to be in step with the growth of the Taiwan economy and trends in the world market. And it is still changing. "We must now move into areas such as support services overseas, which the business community in Tai­ wan cannot provide itself," says Agustin Liu (劉廷祖), CETRA secretary-general.

But CETRA's growth came as no surprise to K.H. Wu (武冠雄), its foun­der, first secretary-general, and current deputy chairman. Wu, who has been in­volved in Taiwan's trade since 1956, says: "I realized at the time our export economy was about to take off that it was largely fueled by small companies which had no experience in international trade. It was imperative that the govern­ment provide the needed expertise."

Originally modeled after the big trade promotion bodies in Japan (JETRO) and South Korea (KOTRA), CETRA soon took on a much wider role than either of them. This was partly be­ cause Taiwan lacked the big conglomer­ates common in Japan and Korea, and partly because of a different method of financing.

"Both JETRO and KOTRA are government-financed and must submit their budgets in advance," Wu says. "This means they are limited primarily to export promotion, and have no room to maneuver. But CETRA has always been financed by the private sector, so we can change according to market needs."

Reflecting the joint nature of the government-private sector organization, CETRA's vice chairmen include P.K. Chiang, vice minister of Economic Af­fairs and himself a former CETRA secretary-general, and C.F. Koo, chair­man of the National Association of Com­merce and Industry and head of the Taiwan Cement Corporation, one of Tai­wan's biggest companies.

After Wu persuaded the government to approve the establishment of CETRA in 1970, the first big landmark for the or­ganization came in 1973. Its first trade show, a simple affair for giftware, was held at the Taipei Domestic Airport exhibition facility. CETRA now organizes about twenty-four such trade shows a year, ranging from the still popular gift­ ware to computers, a product that in 1973 was hardly imaginable as one of Taiwan's major exports.

But even as the trade shows were growing in stature and number, Wu was already thinking about having a perma­nent facility to hold the events. Thus was born the Taipei World Trade Center, an idea which reached fruition with the opening of its Exhibition Hall in 1986. "At one time, world trade centers were simply extensions of port authorities or city governments," Wu says. "But I realized that in Taiwan something much bigger was needed than the Taipei Air­ port facility."

Today, the TWTC is flourishing on the eastern edge of Taipei, a site that is becoming a new focal point of the city. The centerpiece of the trade complex is the huge, seven-story Exhibition Hall, run directly by CETRA under contract from the government. On the ground floor is an open space with enough room for 1,300 booths, and is used for trade shows organized by CETRA. The upper floors hold permanent display show­ rooms for export and import goods. All the upper floors overlook the sky-lit atrium of the exhibition space, and are connected by both elevators and escala­tors. The Exhibition Hall offers services such as meeting rooms, telex, postal services, restaurants, and service staff.

The thirty-four-story International Trade Building, the second building in the complex, opened in 1988 and houses the CETRA headquarters on the fourth through eighth floors. The building management rents office space to airline offices, bank branches, transportation and trading companies, as well as the offices of CETRA itself.

Rounding out the facilities in the TWTC is the Taipei International Con­vention Center, which opened in 1988. Located next to the 26-story, 900-room Grand Hyatt Hotel, the state-of-the-art convention center has a plenary hall with a seating capacity of 3,300 and nineteen smaller meeting rooms. This convenient four-in-one arrangement of exhibition hall, office building, convention center, and hotel has been adopted in other world trade centers around the world. TWTC's effectiveness is enhanced by its membership in the World Trade Center Association, linking it with 150 members in cities all over the world. The association provides an information network for members and organizes twice-yearly conferences to exchange ideas and coor­dinate international trade center activities.

About 130 of CETRA's staff work in the Exhibition Hall, and the rest are based either in the headquarters next door, or in one of CETRA's thirty-one branch offices around the world. In countries where the ROC does not have diplomatic relations, the branch offices operate under the name of Far East Trade Service.

Although CETRA has grown phenomenally over the years, it is far from monolithic. Indeed, it has been remarkably skilled in adapting to the changes in the Taiwan economy. Take the trade shows as an example. These have become in­creasingly sophisticated and high-tech. The Computex, Computer Applications, Electronics, and Taipei Elec' clearly fall under the high-tech category, but advanced technology is also stressed in the more traditional areas of machinery, sporting goods, medical equipment, and hardware.

Two new shows introduced in 1991 represent the opposite ends of Taiwan's economic spectrum: the Taipei Industrial Design Exhibit displays applications of the latest industrial design concepts, and the Taipei International Flower Show illustrates a move toward more aesthetic concerns in the Taiwan consumer market.

Another big change came in the mid 1980s, when Taiwan's huge trade sure pluses became a source of irritation for its main trading partners. Although CETRA has always promoted interna­tional trade rather than just exports, from 1985 onward it began to pay greater attention to imports. The top floor of the Exhibition Hall was converted into an Import Mart, and many U.S. states have set up offices there. Foreign countries were encouraged to organize their own trade shows in Taiwan, and to join in those originally intended for Taiwan products. The U.S. and European coun­tries have taken advantage of these offers, and because many foreign compa­nies now take part, all CETRA trade shows are international in nature.

K.H. Wu claims that this means of promoting imports as well as exports is a concept initially unique to Taiwan. Other precedent-setting moves by CETRA were the organization of the Taipei Import Fair (TIF) for developing coun­tries, and the Business opportunities Service (BOPS) to help these countries coordinate their trade promotions.

An illustration of how CETRA has continued to adapt to changing trends in international trade is its effort to estab­lish new trade links with formerly Communist countries. It has sent several trade missions to Eastern Europe and more recently to the Soviet Union. At the same time, it is helping the manufacturers from these regions to promote their products in Taiwan. CETRA has also opened trade representation offices in Vietnam and Hong Kong, the latter to handle Taiwan's burgeoning business with the colony and to build the ability to make direct trade contacts with main­ land China ─ should the ROC govern­ment allow them on an official basis.

Over the years, CETRA has expand­ ed its activities in the essential area of information, making both its headquarters and the TWTC the first logical places for both foreign businessmen and local manufacturers to turn for assistance. On the fourth floor of the International Trade Building is a library and a database linked to branches in the central city of Taichung and the southern city of Kaohsiung.

To upgrade the image of Taiwan products, CETRA established the Indus­trial Design Promotion Department, which helps Taiwan manufacturers to create brand names and establish corpo­rate identity systems. In addition to col­lecting and disseminating information, this department conducts seminars to in­troduce design concepts and technology. And in 1987, it set up the International Trade Institute to upgrade the services and sophistication of Taiwan business­men through special courses in languages and negotiation techniques.

Since he took over as secretary­ general two years ago, Agustin Liu has presided over one of CETRA's most dynamic periods of change. And he has been planning fur­ther innovations, especially as the private sector has begun organizing more of its own exhibitions and trade missions, areas in which businessmen previously relied on CETRA. Foremost among these new programs is one to help Taiwan companies enter the acquisition and merger field, and form strategic alli­ances with medium and large-sized firms abroad. "The result will be to create a more global reach for companies that may be too small to handle full internationalization of operations on their own," Liu says.

CETRA is currently recruiting staff members with experience in electronics and other advanced fields in order to im­prove the level of professional communication with company officers in advanced European countries as well as the U.S. and Japan. "We can compare their prod­ucts with ours and see which are the most competitive," Liu says. "In this way we can form a mutually beneficial relationship." Liu adds that participation in overseas trade shows might in the future shift from traditional export promotion to the formation of such strategic alliances.

Liu has other priorities for CETRA as well. These include improving the flow of information to Taiwan's business community by linking up with databanks around the world, and by reorganizing its publications, such as Taiwan Products, Trade Opportunities in Taiwan, and Imports of the ROC, to provide businessmen with the latest trade information. Liu reiterates CETRA's dedication to pro­moting design consciousness among Taiwan companies, a line of thinking that may culminate with the hosting of the 1995 World Conference on Design. Moreover, construction of a larger build­ing to house CETRA's International Trade Institute is expected to begin soon.

According to Liu, CETRA's thirty­-one overseas branches still cannot meet the demand for trade services, especially since most Taiwan firms are too small to set up their own services. As a result, CETRA is planning to open at least seven additional offices, mainly in East­ern Europe and developing countries. Liu also has a special interest in promot­ing trade with Latin America, since he was formerly Taiwan's trade representa­tive in Chile (and owes his Spanish name to his service there). He thinks that Taiwan businessmen have hardly begun to tap the area's enormous potential.

But Liu emphasizes that as Taiwan businessmen seek out new markets, they should not forget its traditional trad­ing partner, the U.S., which he describes as the world's largest market and sup­plier. In the case of Europe, he cautions, the unified market in 1992 will help trad­ers because of its single tariff structure, but protectionism could also become a problem. It will be CETRA's task to iron out all the problems that lie ahead.

Of course, an organization that has grown as quickly as CETRA will have its share of problems. For instance, K.H. Wu calls for giving priority to the acquisition and training of qualified staff to ensure that CETRA is able to handle the increasingly sophisticated hardware be­ coming available to the organization. And even with the new hardware, there are some hurdles to overcome. One of these concerns exhibition facilities. Despite its large size, the Exhibition Hall is already inadequate to hold the rising number of trade show applicants, even when the facilities at the Taipei Airport are pressed into service.

It has been proposed that the government build a new exhibition hall, perhaps even larger than the present one. But the land next door to the exist­ing hall, which was originally earmarked for the project, may not be available. The plot is owned by the Taipei city government, and its asking price is too high for the Ministry of Economic Af­fairs to afford. The new hall might be built on another vacant plot in the Taipei suburb of Nankang, but Wu points out that two venues so widely separated would probably be a failure. "The city government is bound by its own regula­tions on the sale of the land," he says, "but we hope a compromise can be reached in the national interest."

Not to be outdone by Taipei, both Taichung and Kaohsiung are pressing ahead with plans of their own to establish world trade centers. The Taichung cen­ter is already functioning. It has an exhi­bition hall and a conference center, and if expansion plans pull through, it will rival the Taipei Center in size. Organized with assistance from CETRA, the Tai­chung center has already been accepted as a full member of the World Trade Center Association. In the case of Kao­hsiung, however, planning is only at the earliest stage, with the city government asking the central government for assis­tance with the project. With all these new plans on stream to boost the trade services already provided by CETRA in Taipei and around the world, it is clear that Taiwan is positioning itself to become an even more active player in world trade.