Statement of TDSA Replacement of the Competent Authority and Adoption of an Approval System do not Help a Healthy Development of the DS Industry
As a major representative of the DS industry in Taiwan and with its direct and related members creating over 50% of the output value from MLM, the Taiwan R.O.C. Direct Selling Association (TDSA) would like to express its gratitude to Legislator Daihua Lin and other industry-related personnel for the care and efforts they have given for the long-term development of the DS industry in order to allow the public better understand the problems faced with by the MLM industry. However, we are afraid that comments and opinions expressed by them on the management direction of the MLM industry at the press conference held on April 18, 2023, might not be the truth, particularly when they claimed that they were speaking on behalf of over 3.6 million DS practitioners in Taiwan. As one of the main bodies of the DS industry, the TDSA considers it necessary to express its different views as follows:
First of all, we would like to talk about the question of self-positioning and attitude of the MLM enterprises. The DS industry have to “open the main gate and walk on the main road” to gain the trust and commitment of the public through the conscientiousness and diligence of all MLM enterprises and distributors. And this is exactly what we have done over the past 30-40 years and the main force for us to have gained the recognition and support of the public in Taiwan. The main reasons for the public to accept and embrace direct selling are the vitality of the DS distributors, liberation of the DS industry, self-discipline of the DS companies, and promotion of the concept of the rule of law by the government. Instead, if we try to gain attention through appealing to grievances and win social sympathy through protests, it is no less than putting long-lasting and stubborn negative labels on ourselves and the shadow of unscrupulous DS distributors would harm the future life potential of the DS business.
As for whether or not the competent authority of the MLM industry should be switched to the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), the DSA thinks this issue should be carefully reviewed by all walks of life with a more objective attitude and a wider perspective because this issue involves questions of industry development and effective management. Therefore, the DSA presents its perspectives as follows:
1. A special industry should be regulated by a dedicated authority: The national general industries are indeed regulated by the MOEA. However, due to the limitation of resources, funds, and personnel, the businesses of national industries governed by the MOEA are general in nature, such as registration of rights, legal research, commercial statistics management, and international exchanges. The MOEA cannot make efficient surveillance on their substantial businesses. Other special industries, such as banking and insurance, transportation, agriculture, forestry, fishery, and animal husbandry, and major social welfare, are not within the scope of responsibility of the MOEA.
2. Given the existing manning quotas of the MOEA, it is not likely that the Ministry can give special treatment to all affairs of the MLM industry while taking consideration of their specialties: Although the Legislative Yuan is currently reviewing the revision of the Organization Act of the MOEA, the matters in charge specified in Article 2 of the Draft Revision of the Organization Act include only “making plans for investment policies and enterprise-establishing strategies”, “making plans for industrial technology innovative R&D policies”, “acting in concert with the economic and industrial policies”, and “processing plans for matters concerning establishing or invest in production business”. According to the planning direction of the new rganization of the MOEA, it is not likely that the MOEA can give special treatment to all affairs of the MLM industry while taking consideration of their specialty at the same time.
3. Issue on the capacity of management: There have always been laws to regulate illegal MLM by the Fair Trade Commission (FTC). Article 8 of the Multi-level Marketing Supervision Act and its corresponding penalties are the sources of law. Legitimate and self-disciplined DS companies have always been self-disciplined and made unremitting efforts to improve themselves. What needs to be enhanced now is to strengthen the management of illegal MLM enterprises and review the capacity of law enforcement and human resources. Otherwise, even though the competent authority is replaced, the problem of law enforcement capacity is still there and the situation of “lack of law enforcement” will continue.
4. Industrial characteristics need to be regulated and managed beforehand or in the middle of the situation: Due to the uniqueness of the organizational expansion of the MLM industry, the competent authority needs to make substantial preventive management and regulation beforehand or in the middle of deteriorating MLM behaviors or violation of related major provisions, such as unreasonable commission systems,including returns & refunds polities and other serious violations. Once a violation occurs, its influence may be exaggerated due to social dramatizing and the social stability might deteriorated, which will eventually harm the overall MLM industry. Therefore, in advanced countries, the MLM industry has long been commissioned to a professional fairtrade body or a specific organization, who have experts in industry competitive behaviors, to formulate rules and regulations or make screening treatment in advance for specific behaviors.
In their previous discussions on revision of the Multi-level Marketing Supervision Act, many legislators or public figures who have cared about revision of the Act for a longtime, repeatedly urged the competent authority to conduct strict control and review, and even suggested in the draft revision that the handling of several matters be switched from the existing reporting system to an approval system, in the hope of strictly watching the behaviors of the MLM industry, lest that the regulation of the MLM industry is not thorough enough.
However, in the discussion of replacing the competent authority, they put the MLM industry under a supervision model that can only provide form management, instead of a substantial and reasonable approach that can deal with special matters in a specific manner. Their opinions are obviously in conflict with their previous arguments and would make Taiwan’s MLM industry lose its direction in management. This is another issue that needs to be taken seriously in the process of revision of the Act. Therefore, the TDSA would like to call on our highly respected legislators and other people of vision in the industry to think carefully and be discerning when planning the overall management direction for the MLM industry, and refrain from falling into populism so as not to make the nature of the problem unclarified or explored.
PM-INTERNATIONAL Honored with DSN “Bravo International Growth Award” for 3 Consecutive Years
After jumping to No. 10 in DSN Global 100 in 2021, PM-INTERNATIONAL continued to move forward to No. 9 in 2022 and No. 8 in the newly disclosed 2023 ranking with an annual turnover of US$ 2.55 billion. PM-INTERNATIONAL has been honored with the Bravo International Growth Award issued by Direct Selling News (DSN), the most authoritative medium in the direct selling industry, for 3 consecutive years. Furthermore, Mr. Sorg, Founder and CEO of PM-INTERNATIONAL, received the Bravo Leadership Award, one of the most prestigious Bravo awards.
Being consistent from beginning to end, PM-INTERNATIONAL is celebrating its 30 th anniversary this year. Over the past 30 years, PM-INTERNATIONAL has been prudent in operation and insisted on doing the right thing, being committed to offering quality assurance with product development, abiding by a fair and reasonable system, and organizing interesting projects from time to time to inspire partners, so as to grow and expand rapidly around the world. Once again, PM-INTERNATIONAL impressed many respectable competitors in the business with a new milestone – No. 8 DS company in the world.
This is truly a moment of pride! PM-INTERNATIONAL will continue to grow and pursue another success.
Cerule Global Experiences Extraordinary New Life in 2023 Launch New Product at Much Anticipated Spring Summit
Cerule Global held its Spring Summit at Denwell Cana on April 16, 2023, attracting many people to gather together on that day. Mr. Andy Goodwin, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer and Co-Owner of Cerule Global, came all the way from America to Taiwan to launch the coming of our new product – CollagenActiv, a unique duel action powder supplement. The quick results of CollagenActiv amazed on-site partners, who couldn’t wait to personally experience it immediately.
On the same occasion, Andy announced the qualification for joining the 50K Hawaii Incentive Trip, which gave our partners a specific goal to work for. Cerule Global is an innovative science-based biotechnology company, selling scientifically proven and unique supplements. We believe extraordinary life is possible. Our common success is derived from telling the truth, doing the right thing, and sincerely caring about our customers.
JEUNESSE Ready to Leap to Start a New Era
In 2023, two major groups Jeunesse and LACORE joined forces to start a new era of Jeunesse, combining Jeunesse’s soft power, which features its “innovative interactive online shopping, original Y.E.S. management system, and leading scientific research experts” and LACORE’s hard power, which features its “worldwide warehouse logistic system, most powerful supplements cGMP facility, and state-of-the-art tech R&D laboratories” to form one of the most solid teams with service-based leadership. Under the leadership of Jason Borné, Jeunesse’s newly appointed CEO and Mark Wang, Director of Sales and Marketing of Jeunesse in Greater China, Jeunesse is ready to create another glory with a brand-new look.