The company, a leftover of the state monopoly on alcohol and tobacco, now has to present a report to the Legislature's Finance Committee before it can obtain the right back to spend the funds.

Ruling Kuomintang lawmaker Alex Faye said he understood that placing ads at the games could bring in a lot of revenue, but he accused the company of being unable to provide detailed plans about how it planned to profit from the campaign. As a result, Faye proposed to cut NT$200 million from the TTL budget.

Finance Minister Lee Sush-der came up with the suggestion to freeze the ad budget temporarily until the company was able to present a detailed report on its Asian Games plan.

The opposition Democratic Progressive Party has criticized TTL for spending too much money on a sporting event in China while failing to sponsor the past year's key athletic meets in Taiwan, the Kaohsiung World Games and the Taipei Deaflympics.

TTL projects a profit of more than NT$7.35 billion for the fiscal year 2010. The company sees the 16th Asian Games next November as an opportunity to publicize its key product, Taiwan Beer, with the expected 10 million visitors to the event.

The company began to export the beer to China in large quantities in July this year after a long trademark registration process.

Officials say the ads at the Asian Games could help double the company's annual revenue to NT$60 billion and lead to the creation of 1,000 jobs.