Taiwan’s Johnson Health Tech says it is poised to be an unexpected winner from the US-China trade war. The world’s third-largest gym equipment maker expects a new factory in Vietnam, which it planned before the ongoing trade war, to allow it to escape tariffs on made-in-China gym equipment sold to American fitness outlets. “We will have a greater advantage over our Chinese rivals because they will be hurt by the latest tariffs,” Chief executive Jason Lo said in a recent interview at the company’s headquarters in the central Taiwanese city of Taichung. “We expect to benefit from orders shifting to us from Chinese competitors, as they will be forced to raise prices.” Companies all around the world are having to find ways to adjust to the escalating trade war. Many American retailers are shifting their sourcing out of China’s vast manufacturing belt, a process that is adding millions in costs and leaving China’s factories in a desperate state. Gym equipment was among the US$110 billion in Chinese goods that the US hit with tariffs on Sunday. Johnson, which supplies Planet Fitness and Marriott International, is one of the few companies to say it’s benefiting from the disruption that threatens to permanently transform the global supply chain. The company sees 2019 sales growing by at least 11 per cent to US$800 million, Lo said. Its goal for the end of 2020 is US$1 billion in revenue, which would match last year’s sales of industry leader Life Fitness. KGI Securities analysts including Jenny Liu wrote in a note on Friday that the new plants in Vietnam and Taiwan will help boost Johnson’s cost competitiveness against its American rivals, increasing its market share. The stock has surged 171 per cent this year, poised for the best performance since 2005. Johnson fell as much as 2.2 per cent in Tuesday morning trading in Taipei. Lo said his company started exploring its options in Vietnam nearly a decade ago, and the new US$20 million facility is set to open in December. Johnson Health plans to complete at least one acquisition next year, and an automatic warehousing Centre in Taiwan will launch in the second quarter. “Manufacturers have to be like nomads, they should be ready to change their production base for a competitive advantage,” he said. “That is why we were prepared early.”