Thu, Jun 25, 2020 page10

• US agency could loan billions to finance reshoring

  • Reuters, WASHINGTON
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  US government financing for projects to return critical supply chains to the US as part of COVID-19 response efforts could reach tens of billions of dollars and clients might include a projected US$12 billion Taiwanese semiconductor plant, the head of the agency managing the funds said.

  The US International Development Finance Corp (DFC) is talking to companies about reshoring the manufacturing of personal protective equipment, generic drugs and pharmaceutical ingredients, chief executive Adam Boehler said in an interview on Monday.

  Boehler said letters of understanding for some initial projects could be signed within the next month.

  US President Donald Trump’s administration has been pushing for US companies and importers to move manufacturing out of China.

  The agency, which opened its doors in January to boost US overseas development financing efforts to counter China’s massive Belt and Road Initiative, was drafted into domestic service last month, after Trump signed an executive order under the Defense Production Act.

  DFC and the US Department of Defense on Monday agreed to jointly administer US$100 million in supply chain reshoring funds from the US$2.3 billion coronavirus legislation passed in March.

  Company proposals to reshore are already pouring in, Boehler said.

  “The areas that have come on hot right away are on the PPE [personal protective equipment] side and within the pharmaceutical value chains,” Boehler said, adding that there was interest in returning some generic drug production to the US.

  The US$100 million can be leveraged into “tens of billions of dollars” in loans by using it as a pool of capital similar to the US Department of the Treasury’s backing of US Federal Reserve loan facilities, Boehler said.

  At that scale, the agency could participate in the financing of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) planned factory in Arizona.

  The project is a centerpiece of the push to wrestle global technology supply chains back from China.

  TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, is a major supplier to Apple Inc, Qualcomm Inc and other major US tech firms.

  “We provide loan and investment financing, so could we be relevant there? Absolutely. We’re talking tens of billions of dollars in potential here, so that’s a possibility, I wouldn’t exclude that,” Boehler said.

  A financing package for TSMC would likely include private capital from the state of Arizona. It is too soon to say whether the agency would be able to participate.

  DFC was created under 2018 legislation that combined the former Overseas Private Investment Corp (OPIC) and part of the US Agency for International Development, more than doubling OPIC’s overall lending and investment capacity to US$60 billion.

  Its planned launch in October last year was delayed until January by a budget fight in the US Congress that threatened a government shutdown.

  Boehler said the DFC’s development mission would not be affected by Trump’s executive order and would keep its “foot on the nations.

  The 337-employee DFC — small for a federal agency — is adding about 15 people to focus solely on the domestic reshoring projects, he said, and the funding for overseas development would be kept separate.
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