Starting this month, Taiwan is allowing for the first time in six decades direct investment from mainland China to 64 sectors of manufacturing, 25 in services and 11 public infrastructure projects. The plastics industry is included in the list.

A little background: Taiwan has restricted business activities with mainland China since the two sides split at the end of a civil war in 1949. However, since the mainland opened up for Taiwanese investment two decades ago, the amount of Taiwanese investment on the mainland has reached US$77 billion according to official records. Now appears to be the time to balance that flow of money.

But, given China's undisputable advantages in manufacturing, what types of investment opportunities would be able to attract mainland Chinese businesses to invest in Taiwan's plastic manufacturing industry?

When I raised this question to a panel of Taiwanese trade officials at a cross-strait forum in Guangzhou before this year's Chinaplas show, the answer was: "While Taiwanese firms have gained tremendous knowledge of the mainland during the past two decades, the mainland businesses know little about Taiwan's plastic industry and market. In order for them to discover investment opportunities, the first step should be send trade missions to Taiwan for first-hand intelligence."

It doesn't take a trade mission to realize that, compared to mainland China, Taiwan's plastics industry doesn't offer competitive advantages in labor cost, scale of economy, readiness of entire supply chain, local market potential or government incentives/subsidies.

In my opinion, Taiwan's strengths that mainland China hopes to take advantage of lie in the fields of design, high-tech manufacturing and global trade.

When it comes to plastics manufacturing, the most convenient example would be India's antidumping charges on Chinese injection machines. The trade barrier doesn't apply on machines made in Taiwan. Perhaps mainland press makers can start assembling presses in Taiwan and ship them through the South China Sea to India?

I also believe that Taiwan has plenty of reasons to want to work with the mainland, which accounts for more than one-fifth of Taiwan's total foreign trade volume. As Mr. Huang Wenrong with the Taipei World Trade Center put it at the cross-strait conference, buyers from all over the world are doing one-stop shopping in mainland China, threatening regional shows like Taipei Plas. Meantime, Huang said, Taiwan can contribute with its experience in dealing with global downturns, which China lacks.

In the middle of a massive home organization, I went on a shopping spree for plastic boxes. Just last week, I purchased 100 shoe containers, a dozen 66-quart clear totes, another dozen under-the-bed boxes, and eight solid color bins.

The real-life consumer experience has proven to be a valuable addition to my understanding of plastic storage items from covering the International Housewares Show in the past three years.

In my April-13 trend story "Firms thinking inside the box, to make it better," I made a list of characteristics consumers look for in a plastic box: clarity, color, functionality, stackability, modularity, durability, material safety, airtightness, etc.

In reality, when I decided to buy plastic shoe boxes, I immediately thought of a British company I wrote about in 2007: Really Useful Boxes. I remember seeing at their booth shoe boxes with drop-down front opening, a wonderful feature for taking shoes out from high stacks of boxes. However, as I did more research, the company is only selling a handful of office storage items through Office Depot. Its online retail for the U.S. market won't begin until August. I can't wait for my shoes to gather dust in the basement.

As I found out more about front-access shoe boxes, I realized that they are beyond my modest budget - $2 for each women's shoe box and $4 for men's. Due to the large quantity I need, the price point, not functionality or anything else, became the top consideration.

With that in mind, I compared prices from all local stores. Buying plastic boxes from the Internet made little sense, because the shipping can cost an arm and leg, plus, some online reviews complained about product damage.

Long story short, the cheapest shoe boxes available in my region turned out to be at a specialty store (not Wal-Mart, Dollar stores or Big Lots). I was able to save nearly 30 percent of my budget for, oh well, more plastic boxes. The bonus is that, these affordable shoe boxes also have the nicest design of all options I looked at, with clear body and lids, a modern linear shape, and superb stackability. They are designed and made in the USA.

E-mail me if you want to know what that specialty store is.

Local authorities in Guangzhou said last week that a spot check found more than half of the PVC pipes substandard. According to the news report from Guangzhou Daily, the quality inspection agency tested 47 lots of PVC pipes from 15 retailers in the city, and 25 lots failed to meet the standards in terms of gauage, density, strength, light transmittance, etc.

While one spot check may not be the most accurate, I've seen plenty of government, industrial and consumer reports confirming the same problem: the lack of quality and credibility in the Chinese market.
It makes the consumers' role more complicated and difficult, in a retail environment that neither guarantees quality/authenticity nor honors easy return/exchange.

But the key question relates to whether the Chinese consumers are ready to pay a premium for high quality. Last year, after the tainted-baby-milk scandal, many Chinese parents switched to imported formula (not made-in-China Western brands). At one point, when I went to a local post office in Akron, Ohio, to send some baby clothes to my nephew in China, I was asked by a friendly associate: "You are not sending any baby formula? We've seen a lot of that going to China lately."

See, if the Chinese consumers were willing to pay for imported plastic pipes, it would be a win-win. They will finally have the peace of mind, and the North American pipe extruders could make some money.

Don't tell me the shipping cost is the obstacle. If Chinese firms are already importing pipes to North American, it would only make economic sense to ship some made-in-U.S. pipes back across the Pacific in the same containers.

Or am I being too naïve?

On this coming Saturday, August 1, 2009, China's new regulations on media reproduction will take effect. Compared to the previous version (enacted in 1996), the new regulatory policy is tightening the control of media reproduction equipment, including high-precision injection molding machines.

Under the new law, a government approval must be in place for any purchase, import, addition or modification of media storage disc manufacturing equipment. The General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) is the administrative agency responsible for drafting and enforcing the regulations.

It's worth noting that GAPP is actually the same agency as the National Copyright Administration (NCAC), which is typical China's "one agency, two nameplates" structure.

According to the new regulations, the purchase, import, addition or modification of manufacturing equipment for read-only CD/DVDs must apply for approval from GAPP in Beijing. GAPP's provincial level branches will be regulating the purchase, import, addition or modification of manufacturing equipment for writable CD/DVDs.

Equipment manufacturers in China are required to report the production and sale of any CD/DVD reproduction equipment within 30 days.

It'll be interesting to see whether this new regulation will be strictly enforced and whether it will in any way affect the high-precision injection press market.

(The GAPP Web site is currently down. I'll post the URL of the new law once the site is back online.)