Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday said higher tariffs on imports into Mexico would not have a major impact on its operations, as the measure does not target the company’s core information and communications technology (ICT) business.
Hon Hai expects the potential impact to be limited, as the affected items are mainly non-ICT products, Hon Hai rotating chief executive officer Kathy Yang (楊秋瑾) told reporters on the sidelines of a contract-signing ceremony in Kaohsiung.
Although the company’s automotive electronics business might be affected, Hon Hai is not overly concerned about the situation, Yang said.
Photo: CNA
Mexican lawmakers on Wednesday backed a measure to raise tariffs to as high as 50 percent from between 15 percent and 20 percent on imports of light vehicles from China and countries that have no trade agreement with Mexico.
Hon Hai said it also implemented multiple duty-deferral mechanisms in Mexico to mitigate potential impacts, as it had anticipated the situation early on.
“Every country has its own policies and considerations, and as a large company that faces political and societal changes on a daily basis, we have a certain degree of resilience and ability to respond, so we are not overly concerned,” Yang said.
Hon Hai yesterday held a contract-signing ceremony for a land development project to build a new headquarters at the under-construction MRT Y15 station in Kaohsiung’s Asia New Bay Area (亞洲新灣區).
With a total investment of NT$15.9 billion (US$509.58 million), Hon Hai’s overall investment in Kaohsiung would exceed NT$25 billion, Yang said.
The project is expected to begin construction in 2027 and be completed in 2033, Hon Hai said.
It would comprise two buildings — one residential and the other a mixed-use complex housing technology research-and-development (R&D) offices, retail space and a shopping mall, Hon Hai said.
The two buildings are to serve as a key base for product verification, featuring 45 floors above ground, a height of 234m and a total floor area of 11,350m2, and are expected to create about 2,000 jobs upon completion, Hon Hai said.
After completion, the buildings would house Hon Hai’s smart city, software R&D, battery cell and energy storage R&D, EV technology development, and artificial intelligence (AI) application teams, the company said.
Aside from Kaohsiung, Hon Hai in February also signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the government of Mexico’s Sonora State to collaborate on smart city development.
The collaboration has already been launched, and the company also plans to promote the smart city model developed in Kaohsiung to Sonora, as well as other cities in Taiwan, Yang said.
However, as such projects involve high complexity and cannot be replicated simply by securing a site in Taiwan — given the extensive technological integration and long-term planning required — the company would only further assess similar plans after the model matures, she said.
In May, Hon Hai announced a partnership with Nvidia Corp to build a supercomputing center in the Asia New Bay Area, with an investment of NT$42 billion, a project the company in October said is expected to be completed next year.
As the scale of the Nvidia project is immense — which Yang described as “the highest level in Asia” — and several technologies and plans are still being finalized, a detailed construction schedule would be released once development becomes clearer, she said.
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