WITH COVID-19 impacting worldwide economic activity, one of the hardest hit sectors is the construction sector since working from home is not an option, said Building Material Distributors Association of Malaysia (BMDAM) president Bill Lee in his statement during the Taiwan Excellence Building Materials Online Product Launch yesterday (Aug 25).
The event was jointly organized by Bureau of Foreign Trade, Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA), and Plumbing Association of Taiwan to highlight some of Taiwan’s most innovative building materials related solutions.
Over 100 Malaysian building-related businesses participated in the event, including building material importers, interior designers, real estate developers, distributors, traders, etc.
Lee continued revealing that the value of construction work in Malaysia registered negative growth of -14.2% in Q4 2020 but has improved slightly to -10.5% in Q1 2021 (amounting to RM31.4 bil).
Although the industry is in a downtrend now, Lee mentioned that developing affordable housing is a long-term project in Malaysia with one million affordable houses targetted to be built within a span of 10 years starting from 2018.
With that, Lee expressed delight in seeing the entry of these global brands into the Malaysian market. He believes that the introduction of new technologies that will reduce costs and human-to-human contact are going to be highly sought after by the construction industry.
TAITRA product manager Patrick Wang mentioned that sanitary equipment is one of the rarely seen categories that has its own industrial cluster in Taiwan.
Since the 1950s, factories in Dingfan area in Changhua, Taiwan has been transforming product types to valves and faucets. Currently, over 50% faucets in the world come from Dingfan, making Changhua a key manufacturing hub in the water and hardware industry.
The webinar was separated into two sessions, factory and kitchen & bathroom. One of the highlights from the factory session was Well-Link Industry, Taiwan’s largest manufacturer of anti-seismic and structural bearing building solutions.
Their KVM Viscoelastic Damper is a passive, velocity displacement dependent energy dissipation device for vibration control and seismic protection of structures. It is proven to reduce the effect of wind and seismic impact to increase the structural safety of buildings.
The damper consists of three steel plates and two layers of special visco-elastic material with a high capacity of deformation and energy dissipation, which increases stiffness and damping to the structure.
Besides that, the factory session also showcased three innovative brands, such as Sheng Yuan Electric’s Alaska VIVI circulation fan that is adjustable to different angles to effectively remove dampness and odour, Fradox Global’s Venting Master – natural roof ventilation system that uses an upward-opening design to cool the indoor space through natural convection, and Ching Yuang Enterprise’s LED Balloon Light Tower that provides glare-free lighting and extends LED life through effective heat dissipation with their patented balloon cover.
As for the kitchen & bathroom products, Herher Synergy, a company dedicated to “improve human life and protect environment, introduced their MiniBle Q Microbubble Faucet Aerator.
Taking a normal faucet aerator to the next level, their aerator creates microbubbles that are 500 times smaller than the size of human pores.
These microbubbles can easily enter into the surface of our skin or vegetable to bring away dirt and grease, achieving deep cleaning. With this technology, it is also able to reduce 15-30% of wasting water, and enhances the power of degreasing by saving 10-15% of detergent.
Other kitchen & bathroom products that was unveiled in this online showcase include: Jye Li An Technology’s 21*21 bathroom heating fan that keeps bathroom air fresh, reduce mildew and prevent accident from slipping on wet floor, Taiwan Sakura’s Chimney Type Cooker Hood that comes equipped with a unique filter system that prevents oil from accumulating on the motor and Sheng Tai Brassware’s JUSTIME bathroom products that are made from lead-free copper with excellent resistant against acid, heat, and corrosion.
The Malaysian and Taiwanese counterparts will also be holding a one-to-one business meeting on the today for further discussion.
To find out more about the products, you can re-watch the webinar here: https://youtu.be/cUPCGvL8ZD0 – Aug 26, 2021
