Taiwan’s Ministry of Economy planed to grant subsidy of NTD200 to every bulb of household LED lamp against the background that the China National Standards (CNS) for LED lighting hasn’t been worked out.The lighting industry feared that this move will benefit the inferior companies. Yesterday, when Zhang Kongcheng, president of Taiwan Lighting Fixture Export Association, paid an official call to the Bureau of Standards, he urged the bureau to speed up the work on formulating the national standards for LED lighting.
 
According to an insider who chose to remain anonymous, the Bureau of Standards under Ministry of Economy drew up Taiwan’s LED lighting standards for years in response to the policy of energy-saving and carbon reduction, but the standards haven’t been officially implemented and lighting companies have no place to test their products. To this end, Zhang Kongcheng made a visit on Oct. 8^th to Chen Jieshan, director of the Bureau of Standards, and urged the bureau to accelerate the formulation of national standards for LED lighting. However, the Ministry of Economy announced unexpectedly to offer subsidies for household LED bulbs in 1 month. The industry questioned that how will the Ministry offer subsidies without standards?
 
The Ministry of Economy intends to follow the example of the subsidy policy for energy-saving home appliances (such as refrigerator, wash machine, TV, and air-conditioner) to allot NTD 1 billion for household LED bulbs. Every bulb can be granted with NTD 200 at most and every house enjoys a quota of 5 to 10 LED bulbs. The policy is expected to be carried out before the end of this year.
 
However, the situation is totally different between LED lighting and energy saving home appliances. The two rounds of subsidies for energy-saving home appliances are based on the energy label, while CNS standards for LED lighting haven’t come out yet. At present, there are at least 40 to 50 companies engaged in the production of LED bulbs at different quality levels. The industry worried that LED bulb manufactures who specialize in unqualified low-price LED bulbs will rule the market by means of price edge.
 
Taiwan industry strongly called on the Ministry of Economy to release the national standards for LED lighting first and then offer subsidies for household LED bulbs.