The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) will try to figure out a better way to help Taiwan’s ailing DRAM sector and do its best to communicate with the legislature after lawmakers recently rejected the government’s plan to restructure the industry, an MOEA official said yesterday.
Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥), who just returned from Singapore after attending the APEC forum, said that he understood legislators’ concerns about state-backed Taiwan Memory Co (TMC, 台灣創新記憶體公司).
“The MOEA needs to make more of an effort to restructure the DRAM industry, with TMC being one of the possibilities,” Shih said.
The ministry will explain to lawmakers the necessity of establishing TMC and review other ways of pushing the project, he said.
The legislature’s Economics Committee adopted a resolution last Wednesday to ask the ministry to suspend the restructuring plan and withdraw proposed financial support for TMC, which was supposed to be its centerpiece.
The company, which has yet to begin operations, received a commitment from Japan-based Elpida Memory Inc to contribute technology, and had requested NT$4.9 billion (US$152.1 million) from the government to get the venture started.
While the Cabinet approved the request in principle, the investment project needs the approval of the legislature before it can be implemented.
Although the global DRAM market is picking up, Shih said the DRAM industry’s fundamental problems have not been solved.
One of the issues the restructuring plan would address is the the over-reliance of local manufacturers on foreign technology and the NT$20 billion to NT$30 billion they have to pay per year in technology licensing fees, Shih said.
Industry experts, however, said consolidation in the DRAM sector was hard to envision because domestic manufacturers rely on different sources of technology, and they are weighed down by heavy debt burdens and lack of mutual trust.
In related news, the production value of Taiwan’s integrated circuit (IC) sector in the fourth quarter of this year is projected to hit NT$366.4 billion, 0.65 percent lower than in the previous quarter, the Industry and Technology Intelligence Services (ITIS) said yesterday.
The projected decline is mainly because of seasonal changes in demand, ITIS said.
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