8/8(Sat)The mother of Taiwan's textile / Textile investment paradise in Ethiopia (Host: Winston)

[李昰翰]

Dear Yoyoers,

It’s the pleasure to host a meeting on the father’s day. Family is almost the most essential harbor for the majority of people which comforts you with love, affection, livelihood, mental release, and so forth. What’s the reason for a lady at her age of 28 left home, and migrated to an unknown place meeting with indigenous residents not familiar with and quite different culture background? What endows her with such an enormous courage and determination on giving up what she has owned for the association with family and homeland for sake of servicing people in Taiwan where she has contributed herself exceeding half a century?

In upper section of the meeting, we’ll explore the story of a great angel for Taiwan, Sister Maryta Laumann, a missionary from Germany and known as the mother of Taiwan’s textile. What’s her life story impresses you the most 3 aspects? She found both the department of Textiles and Clothing at Fu Jen University, the first of its kind in Taiwan, and also erected the Chinese Textiles and Clothing Culture Center in Taiwan. Can you dig out whatever she has done for Taiwan brings what outcome and implication for the education and connection to industry in the arena of textile field for Taiwan? If you were the policy maker, how will you lead the outlook, and what will you bring viable policy conducive for economic development engaged with textile and clothing ecological system?


SECTION ONE: The mother of Taiwan’s Textiles

SECTION ONE SOURCES :
I. Article: The Mother of Taiwan's Textiles
Fu Jen's Sister Maryta
Lee Shan Wei /photos courtesy of Kent Chuang /tr. by Jonathan Barnard, Taiwan Panorama

https://www.taiwan-panorama.com/en/Arti ... 77&CatId=8

II. Film: 3 minutes
Taiwan textile industry propaganda
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibkUd7u8DvU


SECTION ONE QUESTIONS :
1.Sister Maryta Laumann, the mother of Taiwan’s textiles, has contributed herself to Taiwan for more than half of a century. What’s her major contribution on Taiwan’s textiles education and industry impresses you the most 3 aspects?
2.What’s Sister Maryta’s ethos and education designs conducive for the students? Can you find the connection for the outcome of the education articulated to the career development on textile and clothing industry in Taiwan.
3.What are the crucial elements of the competitiveness on textile and clothing market? If you were the policy maker in Taiwan, what would you do?



SECTION TWO: Textile investment paradise in Ethiopia

Have you had an encountering experience of buying something “Made in Africa”? Except for the outstanding athletes at the playground of magnificent contest at Olympic Games or FIFA World Cup once every four years, it has been rarely seen for the breaking news or events appeared to the news channel in Taiwan. What’s your impression for everything entailed with Africa? Perhaps some of the people might still stagnate at the stereotype of impression to the scenario of primitive aboriginals, wild animals, insects, rivers, plants, grassland, and so forth about life, ecology, and landscape on geography in the mystery continent, Africa.

For the down section of the meeting, we’ll take trip by way of thinking to delve into the investment paradise to Ethiopia in Africa. What’s the driving motivation for so many textile or clothing tycoons who chose Ethiopia where to put their investment to, even so called a paradise deserved to investment? Assume you were the textiles tycoons, you would be requested to use a SWOT analysis to demonstrate why for the investment in Ethiopia? The article highlights five primary challenges, “Infrastructure, people, societal safety, supply chain, management”, for textile investment in Ethiopia. Can you express your perspective to overcome the challenges and lead to a successful management toward investment in Ethiopia? As a capital import state, if you were the policy maker for Ethiopia government, what will you do for boosting the textile investment? Wait to see your creative ideas?

SECTION TWO SOURCES :
I. Article: Taiwanese Textile Industry’s New Paradise
By Kaiyuan Teng
From CommonWealth Magazine (vol. 653 ), 2018-08-03
https://english.cw.com.tw/article/artic ... on?id=2055


II. SWOT example

III. Film: 9 minutes
Textile investment environment in Ethiopia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7YuTSQCioA

IV. Film: 5 minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBeKNt8ssXg


SECTION TWO QUESTIONS :
1.Do you think textile investment to Ethiopia is a good idea? Assuming you are an investor, please use SWOT to evaluate the textile investment project to Ethiopia.
2.The article highlights five primary challenges, “Infrastructure, people, societal safety, supply chain, management”, for textile investment in Ethiopia. If you are a professional manager assigned to operate in the manufacturing base in Ethiopia, how will you do to overcome or get adaptive to the local environment?
3.If you were the policy maker for Ethiopia government, what would you do for boosting the textile investment?

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Agenda:
3:45 ~ 4:00pm Greetings & Free Talk / Ordering Beverage or Meal / Getting Newcomer’s Information
4:00 ~ 4:10pm Opening Remarks / Newcomer’s Self-introduction / Grouping
(Session I)
4:10 ~ 4:50pm Discussion Session (40 mins)
4:50 ~ 5:10pm Summarization (20 mins)
5:10 ~ 5:15pm Regrouping / Instruction Giving / Taking a 10 Minutes Break (Intermission)
(Session II)
5:15 ~ 5:55pm Discussion Session (40 mins)
6:00 ~ 6:20pm Summarization (20 mins)
6:20 ~ 6:30pm Concluding Remarks / Announcements

Meeting Date: As shown on the Subject Line
Meeting Time: 4:00pm – 6:30pm
Meeting Venue: 丹堤咖啡 Dante Coffee (Minimum Order $80)
Address: 台北市濟南路三段25號[MAP]-捷運忠孝新生站3號出口步行3分鐘

Important Notes:
1. We advise participants to print out the discussion questions and bring them to the meeting for reference. As for the supporting articles, feel free to print them out, as well, according to your preference.
2. We suggest that participants read the articles and think about the questions in advance.
3. Newcomers should prepare a two-to-three minute self-introduction in English to deliver when called upon by the host before the start of the discussion. The host may also ask you to give brief feedback about the meeting at the conclusion of the meeting.
4. We conduct the entire meeting in English. All participants should have at least moderate English-conversation skills and be able to articulate your ideas for each discussion question.
5. We welcome newcomers and other guests to attend the meetings and join the discussion freely for three times. After that, we hope you will consider becoming a YoYo English Club member. We charge a NT$1000 lifetime membership fee.

---

Agenda:
3:45 ~ 4:00pm Greetings & Free Talk / Ordering Beverage or Meal / Getting Newcomer’s Information
4:00 ~ 4:10pm Opening Remarks / Newcomer’s Self-introduction / Grouping
(Session I)
4:10 ~ 4:50pm Discussion Session (40 mins)
4:50 ~ 5:10pm Summarization (20 mins)
5:10 ~ 5:15pm Regrouping / Instruction Giving / Taking a 10 Minutes Break (Intermission)
(Session II)
5:15 ~ 5:55pm Discussion Session (40 mins)
6:00 ~ 6:20pm Summarization (20 mins)
6:20 ~ 6:30pm Concluding Remarks / Announcements

---

Meeting Date: As shown on the Subject Line
Meeting Time: 4:00pm – 6:30pm
Meeting Venue: 丹堤咖啡 Dante Coffee (Minimum Order $85)
Address: 台北市濟南路三段25號[MAP]-捷運忠孝新生站3號出口步行3分鐘

Important Notes:
1. We advise participants to print out the discussion questions and bring them to the meeting for reference. As for the supporting articles, feel free to print them out, as well, according to your preference.
2. We suggest that participants read the articles and think about the questions in advance.
3. Newcomers should prepare a two-to-three minute self-introduction in English to deliver when called upon by the host before the start of the discussion. The host may also ask you to give brief feedback about the meeting at the conclusion of the meeting.
4. We conduct the entire meeting in English. All participants should have at least moderate English-conversation skills and be able to articulate your ideas for each discussion question.
5. We welcome newcomers and other guests to attend the meetings and join the discussion freely for two times. After that, we hope you will consider becoming a YoYo English Club member. We charge a NT$1500 lifetime membership fee, or NT$1000 for students.

[李昰翰]

Participants (17): Thomas, Lewis, Gloria, Kooper, Morris, Julia, Edward, Timothy, Alice, Jason, Shirley, Ramesh, Steve, Sabrina, Jerry, Julian, Winston

[Kooper]

As a 2nd most highly populated country in Africa, Ethiopia is among of the poorest in the world: 23.5% of Ethiopians lived below poverty line by 2015. Any policy that has the potential of reducing its poverty is worth a try. Among them, export-oriented industrialization is a tried and tested one. Over the past few decades, repeated successes have been witnessed in Asia, from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the latest China. It is no surprise that the Ethiopian administration chose to follow suit.

I just finished the book Poor Economics; in it the authors made a convincing case that stable jobs can fundamentally change the poor’s outlook on life, giving them the crucial mental space to think about and execute long-term improvement plans in areas of education, health, career building, and saving. Poor people, lacking the sense of stability, often struggle to overcome the time inconsistency quality inherent in these aspects of life and make unwise decisions. Building textile or apparel factories near urban slums or poor rural villages provides truckloads of job opportunities and could transform the poor’s lives there in the long run.

The icing on the cake of developing textile and apparel industry is that a lion’s share of the job opportunities is created for female, which in turn empowers women. The women in family invest more on children’s health and education than men. Families with at least one female member working in factories are also more likely to allocate more education resources on girls. Both help reduce gender inequality and break poverty trap resulting from illness or illiteracy.

[Janice Wang]

Textile is no stranger to me. The first and only industry I had ever been around. Thanks to Sister Maryland Laumann, a paramount figure to underpin the fundamental education of textiles in Taiwan.

Taiwan’s textile industry had been one of the supporting pillars to create the Taiwan economic miracle. Despite the declining performance and its importance is overshadowed by the high-technology industry, the steady development and integration abilities remain a crucial spot in the world. Because of labor shortages, increasing overhead costs, and environmental protection forced many textile manufacturers to move their production overseas to stay competitive, mostly relocated in China, Southeast Asia, and South America; now, Africa is a rising opportunity.

For an investor to take a familiar business into uncharted territory, starting the processes all over again is the least worrisome challenge on the rack. Those unknowns and unpredictabilities can be the beginning of a cycle of nightmares. An assigned professional manager might be just pushing his luck. With the listed SWOT analysis, the following extending concerns would make an investor remain circumspect over setting up a factory in Ethiopia.

1) Language & distance barriers: The official language of Ethiopia is Amharic, and 77 dialects spoken locally. English is not a commonly spoken language. Besides, the adult literacy rate is only 36%. The flight takes 16 hours and 29 minutes from Taoyuan to Ethiopia; as a result, stable internet support is indispensable for the sake of communication.
2) Flexibility: The culture regarding work ethics, overtime work for an emergency due to errors or delays, and problem-solving skills to reconfigure production line in response to new orders remain unknown.
3) Stability: It involves logistics and connections to business. Poor management translates into additional costs that would offset profits.
-Can electricity and hydro (water) keep up with production needs?
-Will the political power, policies, justice system, banking & financial system (currency & tax), etc. remain stable?
-Are other supply chains stable in terms of accessories - zippers, buttons, belt, and threads, etc.? Also, is the supply chain of relevant up- and mid-stream ready?
-Will the transport system (harbor, airport, point-to-point) be able to keep up to date?
4)Others: Referring to the posted video clip (#2), demand more convincing references from American and EU brands (other than Old Navy, Champro, and Advance Auto Parts) that are sourcing from Ethiopia.

Profit-driven manufacturers will not survive from the long-term competition. Taiwan textile industry has to differentiate itself from others, optimizing high-value products, enhancing the ability of design and branding, setting foot in the eco-functional sector, and intellectualizing the supply chain to keep pace with those top-notched countries.

[李昰翰]

As a 2nd most highly populated country in Africa, Ethiopia is among of the poorest in the world: 23.5% of Ethiopians lived below poverty line by 2015. Any policy that has the potential of reducing its poverty is worth a try. Among them, export-oriented industrialization is a tried and tested one. Over the past few decades, repeated successes have been witnessed in Asia, from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the latest China. It is no surprise that the Ethiopian administration chose to follow suit.

I just finished the book Poor Economics; in it the authors made a convincing case that stable jobs can fundamentally change the poor’s outlook on life, giving them the crucial mental space to think about and execute long-term improvement plans in areas of education, health, career building, and saving. Poor people, lacking the sense of stability, often struggle to overcome the time inconsistency quality inherent in these aspects of life and make unwise decisions. Building textile or apparel factories near urban slums or poor rural villages provides truckloads of job opportunities and could transform the poor’s lives there in the long run.

The icing on the cake of developing textile and apparel industry is that a lion’s share of the job opportunities is created for female, which in turn empowers women. The women in family invest more on children’s health and education than men. Families with at least one female member working in factories are also more likely to allocate more education resources on girls. Both help reduce gender inequality and break poverty trap resulting from illness or illiteracy.

Hi, Kooper,
Let’s get back to 1985. I still remember a great famine outbreak in Ethiopia. Singers in USA conducted a charity activity “USA for Africa” with a song “We are the world”, and singers in Taiwan echoed with a song “Tomorrow will be better”...

It’s good to see Ethiopia gradually leads to its own economic development. I agree with your opinion “ Any policy that has the potential of reducing its poverty is worth a try. Investment to Ethiopia manifests itself more meaningful by teaching the state how to fish instead of giving a fish. What a coincidence you just finished a book “Poor Economics”, and provides us so many supplementary information about the topic. Thank you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p34sK9AYQN4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSO6nOKU4-A

[李昰翰]

Textile is no stranger to me. The first and only industry I had ever been around. Thanks to Sister Maryland Laumann, a paramount figure to underpin the fundamental education of textiles in Taiwan.

Taiwan’s textile industry had been one of the supporting pillars to create the Taiwan economic miracle. Despite the declining performance and its importance is overshadowed by the high-technology industry, the steady development and integration abilities remain a crucial spot in the world. Because of labor shortages, increasing overhead costs, and environmental protection forced many textile manufacturers to move their production overseas to stay competitive, mostly relocated in China, Southeast Asia, and South America; now, Africa is a rising opportunity.

For an investor to take a familiar business into uncharted territory, starting the processes all over again is the least worrisome challenge on the rack. Those unknowns and unpredictabilities can be the beginning of a cycle of nightmares. An assigned professional manager might be just pushing his luck. With the listed SWOT analysis, the following extending concerns would make an investor remain circumspect over setting up a factory in Ethiopia.

1) Language & distance barriers: The official language of Ethiopia is Amharic, and 77 dialects spoken locally. English is not a commonly spoken language. Besides, the adult literacy rate is only 36%. The flight takes 16 hours and 29 minutes from Taoyuan to Ethiopia; as a result, stable internet support is indispensable for the sake of communication.
2) Flexibility: The culture regarding work ethics, overtime work for an emergency due to errors or delays, and problem-solving skills to reconfigure production line in response to new orders remain unknown.
3) Stability: It involves logistics and connections to business. Poor management translates into additional costs that would offset profits.
-Can electricity and hydro (water) keep up with production needs?
-Will the political power, policies, justice system, banking & financial system (currency & tax), etc. remain stable?
-Are other supply chains stable in terms of accessories - zippers, buttons, belt, and threads, etc.? Also, is the supply chain of relevant up- and mid-stream ready?
-Will the transport system (harbor, airport, point-to-point) be able to keep up to date?
4)Others: Referring to the posted video clip (#2), demand more convincing references from American and EU brands (other than Old Navy, Champro, and Advance Auto Parts) that are sourcing from Ethiopia.

Profit-driven manufacturers will not survive from the long-term competition. Taiwan textile industry has to differentiate itself from others, optimizing high-value products, enhancing the ability of design and branding, setting foot in the eco-functional sector, and intellectualizing the supply chain to keep pace with those top-notched countries.

Hi, Janice,
Your writing is just fantabulous, and the brilliant analysis to the topic is also awesome that just likes a professional writer to the investment evaluation report. It’s great to know you are a veteran in textile industry, and bring us abundant supplementary information about the topic. Thank you.

[Kooper]

Attendees(17): Jason, Julia, Steve, Shirley, Julian, Kooper, Lewis, Alice, Morris, Sabrina, Gloria, Edward, Jerry, Ramesh, Thomas, Timothy, Winston (host)