Taiwan is set to relax controls on investments from China in high-tech companies, media reports said yesterday, citing information from Ministry of Economic Affairs officials.
Chinese companies will be allowed to own up to a 10 percent share in Taiwanese semiconductor and flat-panel manufacturers, the Central News Agency (CNA) reported.
The semiconductor industry includes wafer foundry service providers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) and those of DRAM chip makers like Powerchip Technology Corp (力晶科技).
VARYING LEVELS
Chinese firms will also be allowed to own up to a 20 percent share in the less-sensitive tech sectors such as mechanical and metallurgical industries, as well as the medical equipment industry, CNA reported.
Chinese companies will also be permitted to set up joint ventures with Taiwanese technology firms, with shares capped at 49 percent in such ventures, CNA said.
“The proposal to ease the restrictions on investments by Chinese businesses have been approved by the Executive Yuan,” Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Sheng-chung (林聖忠) told Agence France-Presse.
“It is due to be announced in the next few days,” Lin said, declining to provide details.
PRESSURE FROM FIRMS
Local flat-panel makers such as AU Optronics Corp (友達光電) and Chimei Innolux Corp (奇美電子) have long urged the government to relax investment restrictions on Chinese investors, since they believe improving cross-strait cooperation will help them benefit from China’s fast-growing TV market.
In February last year, the government eased restrictions on local panel makers wishing to build next-generation plants in China.
The Investment Commission on Dec. 17 approved AU Optronics’ planned US$3 billion investment to set up a 7.5-generation fab in Kunshan, China.
The government partially lifted its decades-old ban on investment in the country by Chinese investors in June 2009 and Taipei and Beijing signed the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement last June.
ONE-SIDED TRADE
However, accumulated Chinese investment streams to Taiwan are less than one-thousandth of the money going in the other direction, a situation that Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) told an investment forum in Taiwan last week was “no good.”
Based on the commission’s data, as of December Chinese firms had made 102 investments in Taiwan worth US$131.83 million
Taiwanese businesses have funneled an estimated US$150 billion to China since the government eased controls on China-bound investment in 1991, local media have said.
The US and the EU were yesterday to announce a joint effort aimed at identifying semiconductor supply disruptions as well as countering Russian disinformation, officials said. Top US officials are visiting the French scientific hub of Saclay for a meetup of the Trade and Technology Council, created last year as China increasingly exerts its technology clout. US officials acknowledged that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has broadened the council’s scope, but said the Western bloc still has its eye on competition from China. The two sides will announce an “early warning system” for semiconductors supply disruptions, hoping to avoid excessive competition between Western powers
Hotai Motor Co (和泰汽車), which distributes Toyota and Lexus vehicles in Taiwan, yesterday introduced Toyota Motor Corp’s first all-electric sports utility vehicle (SUV), the bZ4X, joining rivals in vying for a share of the nation’s fast-growing electric vehicle market. Starting today, the bZ4X, with a price tag of NT$1.599 million (US$53,780), would be available for online purchase only and customers need to download a special app to place orders, Hotai said. Hotai has received 300 of the electric SUVs, it said, adding that it is not enough to meet robust market demand. A total of 229 electric vehicles were sold in the
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) has made further progress in its expansion into semiconductor manufacturing as its subsidiary teams up with Dagang NeXchange Bhd (DNeX) to build a 12-inch wafer fab in Malaysia. Big Innovation Holdings Ltd (BIH), a wholly owned subsidiary of Hon Hai, has inked a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with DNeX to collaborate on establishing and operating the semiconductor fab in the Southeastern Asian country, it said in a statement released by DNeX on its Web site. The fab is expected to produce 40,000 12-inch wafers per month, deploying 28-nanometer and 40-nanometer process technologies, the statement said. Under
BUYERS BATTLING: While China Steel expects demand to rise in the second half, the World Steel Association reduced its global demand forecast to 0.4% annual growth China Steel Corp (中鋼), the nation’s largest steelmaker, yesterday said it would cut domestic steel prices by 2.1 percent on average for delivery next month in response to a brief slowdown in steel demand and to help customers mitigate mounting manufacturing costs caused by geopolitical issues. However, the company said it expects steel demand to pick up in the second half of the year, benefiting from infrastructure programs in China, as lockdowns there could gradually be lifted later this year, as well as post-war reconstruction projects, if Russia’s war in Ukraine stabilizes. The Kaohsiung-based company’s move matches its Chinese counterparts’ recent
RSS