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.
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