Minister of Economic Affairs John Deng (鄧振中) yesterday said the ministry is drafting new regulations to allow Chinese investment in Taiwan’s IC design industry.
“I hope it would not take too long to ease the restrictions on Chinese investments ... but the ban will not be eased if a set of corresponding measures are not drafted completely,” Deng told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee.
Asked if the planned easing would take effect before the Lunar New Year holiday next year, Deng said there is no time frame for the issue, but he hopes to lift the ban before his term ends in May.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Deng said Taiwanese IC design companies must assure the government that they would not move their operations overseas after it allows Chinese investment.
The planned regulations are to include rules to prevent Taiwan’s core IC design technologies or IC designers from being “inappropriately” transferred to China.
The government would also review the possibility of trade secrets being leaked via investments from China, he said.
Current regulations allow Chinese companies to own minority shares in downstream semiconductor firms, such as foundry makers or package and testing companies. However, given the increasing global competition, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) is under pressure to support Taiwanese IC designers by considering investments from Chinese firms.
“Local companies have been communicating with the ministry. We heard their requests. We understand that the restrictions need to be relaxed,” Deng said.
To allay potential concerns over the easing of restrictions, the ministry is to publicize the Industrial Development Bureau’s evaluation and measures once they are ready, he said.
The ministry would also hold public hearings for the planned regulations if required, he added.
Earlier this month, MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the nation’s largest chip designer, said it would adopt an “open attitude” toward cooperation with Chinese chipmakers to seek growth opportunities.
MediaTek’s remarks came after Tsinghua Unigroup (清華紫光) chairman Zhao Weiguo (趙偉國) said the Chinese firm was interested in acquiring shares in MediaTek if given the opportunity.
Separately, Deng said that Taiwan prioritizes a trade in goods agreement with China over the US-led Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) for the moment, adding that he hopes talks on the trade pact with China would make a breakthrough by the end of this year.
As the TPP agreement awaits ratification from its 12 members, Taiwan would focus on speeding up the pace of negotiations with China, he said.
Earlier this week, Taiwan and China completed the 12th round of negotiations on the trade in goods agreement, but the talks stalled when Taipei turned down Beijing’s request to lift import bans on Chinese farm products.
Both sides are planning to hold a new round of talks next month, but Deng said it is hard to say when an agreement would be signed.
Additional reporting by CNA
PERSISTENT RUMORS: Nvidia’s CEO said the firm is not in talks to sell AI chips to China, but he would welcome a change in US policy barring the activity Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company is not in discussions to sell its Blackwell artificial intelligence (AI) chips to Chinese firms, waving off speculation it is trying to engineer a return to the world’s largest semiconductor market. Huang, who arrived in Taiwan yesterday ahead of meetings with longtime partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), took the opportunity to clarify recent comments about the US-China AI race. The Nvidia head caused a stir in an interview this week with the Financial Times, in which he was quoted as saying “China will win” the AI race. Huang yesterday said
Japanese technology giant Softbank Group Corp said Tuesday it has sold its stake in Nvidia Corp, raising US$5.8 billion to pour into other investments. It also reported its profit nearly tripled in the first half of this fiscal year from a year earlier. Tokyo-based Softbank said it sold the stake in Silicon Vally-based Nvidia last month, a move that reflects its shift in focus to OpenAI, owner of the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT. Softbank reported its profit in the April-to-September period soared to about 2.5 trillion yen (about US$13 billion). Its sales for the six month period rose 7.7 percent year-on-year
MORE WEIGHT: The national weighting was raised in one index while holding steady in two others, while several companies rose or fell in prominence MSCI Inc, a global index provider, has raised Taiwan’s weighting in one of its major indices and left the country’s weighting unchanged in two other indices after a regular index review. In a statement released on Thursday, MSCI said it has upgraded Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country World Index by 0.02 percentage points to 2.25 percent, while maintaining the weighting in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, the most closely watched by foreign institutional investors, at 20.46 percent. Additionally, the index provider has left Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country Asia ex-Japan Index unchanged at 23.15 percent. The latest index adjustments are to
CRESTING WAVE: Companies are still buying in, but the shivers in the market could be the first signs that the AI wave has peaked and the collapse is upon the world Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported a new monthly record of NT$367.47 billion (US$11.85 billion) in consolidated sales for last month thanks to global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Last month’s figure represented 16.9 percent annual growth, the slowest pace since February last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 11 percent. Cumulative sales in the first 10 months of the year grew 33.8 percent year-on-year to NT$3.13 trillion, a record for the same period in the company’s history. However, the slowing growth in monthly sales last month highlights uncertainty over the sustainability of the AI boom even as
RSS