The Investment Commission has rejected China’s state-owned Tsinghua Unigroup Ltd (清華紫光) bid to establish a unit in Taiwan, saying that it was worried the Chinese company would lure away Taiwanese IC designers.
“Our decision is to protect Taiwan’s IC design industry,” commission acting executive secretary Emile Chang (張銘斌) said by telephone yesterday.
Chang said as government regulations strictly forbid Chinese capital investment in the local IC design industry, Tsinghua Unigroup in June filed an investment application to establish a research and development center, without mentioning its core business.
There have been cases of Tsinghua Unigroup poaching Taiwanese IC designers, and the commission believed its application was part of the chipmaker’s moves to expand its position in the global market, he said.
As the Industrial Development Bureau and the National Security Bureau had said that allowing the company to enter the nation would hurt Taiwan’s IC design development, the commission on Tuesday officially rejected Tsinghua Unigroup’s investment application.
However, Chang said the commission on Monday approved four China-bound investments, including the Bank of Taiwan’s (臺灣銀行) application to transfer 1 billion yuan (US$162 million) to set up a branch in Fuzhou; CTBC Bank Co’s (中國信託銀行) request to spend 800 million yuan opening a branch in Xiamen; Taiwan Business Bank’s (臺灣企銀) application to transfer 500 million yuan to set up a branch in Wuhan; and Standard Foods Co (佳格食品) US$40 million investment in its subsidiary in Xiamen.
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