Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) is planning to build a smart factory in Kaohsiung, the city government confirmed yesterday.
Hon Hai, known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) internationally, is to purchase 4 hectares of land at the city’s Hofa Industrial Park (和發產業園區) to build a plant for the production of servers and related products, the Kaohsiung City Government said.
The company on Friday last week put a security deposit equal to 3 percent of the price of the land into a special bank account designated by the park, the Kaohsiung Urban Development Bureau said in a statement.
Hon Hai’s selection and purchase of the land just two months after it signed a memorandum of understanding with Kaohsiung on investment cooperation reflected the city’s success in attracting investment, the bureau said.
A total of NT$50 billion (US$1.59 billion) was invested in Kaohsiung from January to last month to buy land and expand production lines, creating 4,300 jobs in the process, the bureau added.
With a growing number of overseas Taiwanese businesses thinking of returning to invest in Taiwan amid growing trade friction between the US and China, the bureau has pitched Kaohsiung as an attractive option given its good geographic location, climate and excellent living environment.
The city is to set up an investment hotline and a center to provide dedicated services to potential investors to make a transition to Kaohsiung easier for them, it said.
Hon Hai in 2011 established a foothold in the Kaohsiung Software Park in Cianjhen District (前鎮) as part of its efforts to develop a wider range of applications for use in smartphones, tablet and notebook computers, desktop computers, flat panels, education, Internet communications and cloud-based technology gadgets.
Hon Hai has also inaugurated a high-performance computer system in the park, integrating resources with business partners to develop medical applications and big data analysis, among others.
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
With an approval rating of just two percent, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte might be the world’s most unpopular leader, according to pollsters. Protests greeted her rise to power 29 months ago, and have marked her entire term — joined by assorted scandals, investigations, controversies and a surge in gang violence. The 63-year-old is the target of a dozen probes, including for her alleged failure to declare gifts of luxury jewels and watches, a scandal inevitably dubbed “Rolexgate.” She is also under the microscope for a two-week undeclared absence for nose surgery — which she insists was medical, not cosmetic — and is
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
CHIP DUTIES: TSMC said it voiced its concerns to Washington about tariffs, telling the US commerce department that it wants ‘fair treatment’ to protect its competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reiterated robust business prospects for this year as strong artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from Nvidia Corp and other customers would absorb the impacts of US tariffs. “The impact of tariffs would be indirect, as the custom tax is the importers’ responsibility, not the exporters,” TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at the chipmaker’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu City. TSMC’s business could be affected if people become reluctant to buy electronics due to inflated prices, Wei said. In addition, the chipmaker has voiced its concern to the US Department of Commerce