ProMOS gets permission to invest across the Strait

ProMOS Technologies Inc (茂德), one of the nation's leading makers of memory chips, has received government approval to invest in China, the company said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.

According to the filing, the company has obtained permission from the Investment Commission under the Ministry of Economic Affairs to invest US$2.45 million in China.

However, ProMOS Technologies didn't specify what form the investment would take.

In 2002, the government agreed to allow three local semiconductor companies to build a total of three eight-inch (200mm) wafer factories in China by the end of this year.

These factories may only produce chips using the less advanced 0.25-micron technology, to prevent Taiwan losing its competitive edge to China.

The world's largest contract chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), early last year became the first company to receive approval to manufacture chips in Shanghai.

Both ProMOS Technologies and Powerchip Semiconductor Corp (力晶半導體), the world's sixth-largest maker of computer-memory chips, late last year filed applications to the government to construct an 8-inch plant in China.

The government announced last month that it was considering whether to allow Taiwanese semiconductor companies to use more advanced technology to make chips China, in a bid to safeguard the firms' competitiveness.

"We expect to see some bright spots in the government's [cross-strait trade] policy," Huang Chin-tan (黃慶堂), head of the Investment Commission under the Ministry of Economic Affairs, told the Taipei Times in an interview on May 17.

Shares of ProMOS Technologies yesterday rose NT$0.60, or 5.04 percent, to close at NT$12.50.