Automaker may set up across Strait

Formosa Automobile Corp (台塑汽車), a subsidiary of the Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), is planning to invest in an automobile manufacturing plant in Kunshan City of Jiangsu Province, China, it was reported in a Chinese newspaper yesterday.

According to the report, Liu Shun (柳恂), a bureau chief at the Kunshan City Government in charge of the promotion, negotiation and approval of foreign investment projects, said that the Formosa Group was interested in the investment and the city was willing to offer the company land for the complex.

Liu said that there hadn't been any formal discussions on the deal, which aims to develop the complex in the manufacturing of upstream autoparts such as engine components.

Kunshan has been attracting foreign capital, especially from Taiwan, in recent years with most of the funds flowing into the manufacturing sector.

Hung Tse-chung (洪哲崇), a vice president at Formosa Group's Nanya Plastics Corp (南亞塑膠) management unit in Kunshan, said the project is at present only at the concept stage. He said that the Formosa Group's principle business was in manufacturing petrochemicals and that the group had only recently invested in the automobile sector.

Formosa's first automobile -- the 2000 Formosa No. 1 sedan -- rolled into the market at the end of 2000.

Formosa contributed 45 percent of the parts to make the car while joint developer Daewoo of South Korea added in the rest.

Formosa Automobile, which aims to provide 70 percent of the automobile's parts, has some 400 workers at its plant in Tatu (大肚), near Taichung, which can produce 1,750 cars per month and is targeted to make 20,000 cars annually.

In related news, it was reported that Formosa Group chairman Wang Yung-ching (王永慶) may go ahead with a plan to build hospitals in China as soon as next month.

Wang may start building branches of Taiwan's Chang Gung Memorial Hospital (長庚醫院) in February or March in Beijing, as well as in southern China's Fujian Province.

However, while Wang wants to be the sole investor in the hospitals, China's Ministry of Health wants to take a 30 percent stake in the venture, the report said.