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Gou says Hon Hai to boost level of Taiwan investment

Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) yesterday said he would expand domestic investment because he has confidence in government policy, but suggested that local government chiefs propose more incentives for businesses.

Gou made the remarks after briefing Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) on his investment plans at a meeting held at Hon Hai’s headquarters in Taipei County.

“Taiwan is where we want to invest but initially we didn’t plan to because of many competitiveness problems,” Gou said, referring to an NT$100 billion (US$3.25 billion) project to build what he called “a digital technology city.”

Gou said that the city would be designed to provide a digital living environment blended with environmental protection, energy conservation, carbon dioxide emission reduction and intelligent technology.

The city will be a global research and development headquarters for the Hon Hai group, Gou said, adding that the plan will provide 30,000 middle and high-level job opportunities and accommodate 240,000 people.

Gou said he hasn’t decided on the location of the city as he wants the project to tie in with the nation’s overall industrial development policy and will evaluate proposals by local governments to host the city.

“The reason Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) settled down in the [US] state of Alabama was because the state rented out the land for just US$1 … Supermicro set up its firms in the state of New York as it obtained low-interest loans from the state government,” Gou said.

Hon Hai also plans to list its subsidiaries that were originally scheduled to list on overseas markets or those that are already listed outside Taiwan — such as Foxconn International Holding Ltd (富士康控股), a unit of the Hon Hai currently listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange — on the local stock market, he said.

Thanking Gou for his support of the government’s policies, Liu said: “The digital technology city project is inspiring and brings the government’s goal of developing the country into an Asian funding center a step closer.”

Separately, the electronic parts manufacturer has expressed an interest in 3.8 hectares of land inside Kaohsiung’s Software Technology Plaza, an official said yesterday.

“There was little interest in this idle plot of land,” said Jerry Chen (陳寬享), deputy director-general of the export processing zone administration in Taipei yesterday. “But after Hon Hai’s move, many companies from the city’s computer association will also bid.”

The administration will provide the land free to the company that proposes the best plan to utilize it so as to create the most job opportunities, the best output value and the greatest innovative capabilities for the plaza,” he said.

A public announcement will be made in two weeks to tout potential applicants, and a 17-member committee will then be formed to review applications made by companies before mid October before a final decision is made in a month later, Chen said.

Chen said that the administration will be impartial to any applicants, which, however, have to prepare themselves with a better deal than Hon Hai, which has agreed to install 3,000 high-paid software engineers in its office there, which will likely create another 20,000 job opportunities by its related downstream affiliates.
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