The deteriorating domestic investment environment has taken its toll on two of Taiwan's leading firms, which have opted to cut back on local investments, a Chinese-language news report said yesterday.
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC,
The paper said UMC has decided to shelve or scale back its NT$518.8 billion of investments in 12-inch wafer foundries in the Tainan Science-based Industrial Park, while Formosa Plastics plans to delay an NT$10 billion (US$309.4 million) investment plan in the Taoyuan Technology Industrial Park (
In the report, UMC's Chairman John Hsuan (
Last year, UMC secured partnership agreements with Hitachi of Japan and Infineon from Germany to build a 12-inch wafer plant each in Japan and Singapore with the aim of better serving its rapidly growing customer base there. But, according to the report, these moves may also force UMC to scale back its plan of constructing five, 12-inch wafer plants at the Tainan park.
The report also said that if UMC cut down the number of its 12-inch wafer plants in Tainan, the company may use the site to build 16-inch wafer plants and quoted Hsuan as saying that "anything could happen."
But speaking to the Taipei Times, UMC denied the report, saying the company has no plan to shelf the ongoing 12-inch wafer fab construction at the Tainan park. "The report is totally inaccurate. The headline is misleading ... that was not president Hsuan's meaning," said Alex Tseng (曾志南), a UMC's spokesman.
"We will have a pilot run of the first 12-inch wafer plants in Tainan by the beginning of the third quarter, and we have already completed the construction of the second plant's foundation," said Tseng.
Meanwhile, Formosa Plastics Group Chairman Wang Yung-ching (王永慶) reportedly has ordered the suspension of an NT$10 billion plan to develop an industrial park in Taoyuan as very few local companies are willing to move into the park -- which is divided into four areas including electronic materials, automobiles, oil products and biotechnology.
FPG now plans to assign the land reserved for electronic materials to Nan Ya Technologies (
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