Taipei, Dec. 8, 2008 (CENS)--The global financial tsunami have wiped away 20% to 50% of export orders received by Taiwanese firms in China in October and November. A Taiwanese firm in China said it has just seen the start of the downturn in export orders, with the worst expected to come in the first and second quarters of 2009, when many Taiwanese firms there may go under, unable to get through the Chinese lunar New-Year. P.K. Chiang, chairman of the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), said the global financial tsunami is impacting domestic firms harder than the Asian financial storm in 1997. To help Taiwanese firms in the mainland weather the global financial tsunami, The SEF will have discuss with the mainland-based Association for Relations Across Taiwan Straits (ARATS) to devise ways to protect Taiwanese firms` rights in China amid the financial crisis. C.C. Tseng, chairman of the Xiamen Taiwanese Businessmen Association, said Taiwanese suppliers of footwear, textiles have seen a 50% year-on-year decline in export orders in November. H.S. Kuo, chairman of Putien Taiwanese Businessmen Association, said many Taiwanese-invested footwear factories on the Pearl River Delta have shuttered operations since the beginning of this year, believing that more such export suppliers will likely halt operations over unspecified durations after the Chinese lunar New-Year. Cheng Chien-liang, chairman of Chuanzhou Taiwanese Businessmen Association, said China`s local market is unfazed by deflation. Running an apparel firm with more than 100 outlets in the first-tier cities of Fuchien province, Cheng said his company has felt declining shopping power after the end of the Beijing Olympics, with his company seeing a 20% year-on-year sales decline in October and November this year.
