Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) plans to build an US$8.8 billion factory in China, state media said on Saturday, amid reports the Taiwanese firm’s billionaire boss is cooling off on future US investments.
Hon Hai, known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康) outside Taiwan, is the world’s largest contract electronics maker and a major supplier to Apple Inc. The firm is to spend the vast sum on an industrial complex in Guangzhou, China.
The factory will make large-screen LCD‘s, Hon Hai said at an event in the city on Friday last week. It is expected to be operational by 2019.
“We have in China a government that knows how to be efficient and supports new technology,” Hon Hai chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) said in an interview with China’s 21st Century Business.
“As to whether we will invest in the US in the future I have no idea. As a matter of fact, the new [US] administration is not in office and its new policies are not in place,” Gou added.
The firm employs about 1 million workers at its factories across China and has operations in more than 10 countries.
In the US, it has a plant in Virginia for packaging and engineering which employs more than 400 people. Earlier this month Hon Hai confirmed it was in talks over a new US investment, while Japanese telecoms giant Softbank Group Corp shares soared after US president-elect Donald Trump unveiled a US$50 billion deal with the two firms.
Gou said he would only divulge details after discussions with relevant US authorities, but made no mention of it during the factory announcement on Friday last week.
The Guangzhou plant will be jointly run by Hon Hai and Japanese electronics firm Sharp Corp, in which Hon Hai has a 66 percent stake in.
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