Business story: Czech-Taiwanese partnership

10 TAIWAN Business.EU l industry l business story Successful Partnership between a Czech and a Taiwanese Company COMPUPLAST s.r.o. has a very long and colourful history. It is backed by 25 years of experience with designing and delivering tools and lines for plastic extrusion. The company actively collaborates with renown foreign manufacturers. You will find several tools from various countries in its product catalogue. These are always top-quality experienced manufacturers from Europe, as well as East Asia and the U.S. Apart from GMA Machinery from Taiwan, the company also represents LABTECH Engineering and SCHWING Technologies. It has been a member of the Plastics Cluster since 2009, which unifies key companies from the plastic industry in the Zlín region and beyond. Compuplast has long-term experience on the Taiwanese market and that is why we spoke with the company's General Manager, Jan Král. You became the official distributor of GMA Machinery Enterprise for the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 2017. How did this collaboration happen? The GMA website lists, only, your company and two companies from Korea and India as official distributors. The way the collaboration began was quite interesting and actually happened by accident. We have been working with Taiwanese companies since 2007. We were taking over an extrusion line for polyester sheets from one company in 2017. Since we had an interest in extrusion T-dies and accessories for the lines, our Taiwanese partner took us to GMA, where we spent almost half a day looking around the company and discusspecial 2019 sing a variety of topics, both having to do with the company, as well as private matters. I have to admit that we found much in common on both the professional and the private level. At the end of our meeting, the company president Jesse Hsu offered me the opportunity of official representation and distribution. Why did you choose a Taiwanese partner? What are the advantages of Taiwanese machines? What are the strengths of this market, as compared to production in the rest of the world? I would probably rephrase that question. They chose us. I went in to that meeting with the goal of learning about the company and how they make T-dies, ranging from the narrowest 100 mm heads up to 6 m extrusion dies, with the option of automated regulation of foil/sheet thickness. I have to admit that the company impressed me very much. It is the largest producer of extrusion T-dies in Taiwan and certainly belongs to the largest manufacturers of heads globally-speaking. Taiwan is about half the size of the Czech Republic but the population is double. Its western coast is heavily