Twelve foreign enterprises signed investment letters of intent (LOI) worth an estimated NT$46 billion (US$1.43 billion) at an event held by the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) at Semicon Taiwan exhibition yesterday.
Of the 12 firms, four are Japanese, three are American, three are European and two are from other regions, the ministry said.
The businesses are engaged in various fields including IC design, IC manufacturing, semiconductor equipment and materials, biotech, real estate and logistics, the ministry said.
Photo courtesy of Ministry of Economic Affairs
The Taiwan Business Alliance Conference, an annual event held by the ministry to attract foreign investors, was held alongside the Semicon Taiwan trade show for the first time this year in the expectation that more foreign enterprises could see the advantage of investing in Taiwan in the boom of artificial intelligence (AI) applications, the ministry said.
Semiconductor-related companies include the US-based Applied Materials Inc and Micron Technology Inc; NXP Semiconductors NV of the Netherlands; Germany's Carl Zeiss Co; as well as Taiwan Fujibo Precision Materials Co (台灣富士紡精密材料), Taiwan Tanaka Kikinzoku Kogyo Co (台灣田中貴金屬) and Central Glass Co from Japan.
Addressing the event, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said that despite being about the size of the Netherlands and Maryland in the US, Taiwan has "the world's most comprehensive industrial cluster in the semiconductor sector."
Photo: Liao Chia-ning, Taipei Times
This showed Taiwan's "critical position in the supply chain," Kuo added.
Quoting Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), Kuo said Taiwan is at the center of the AI revolution.
He added that Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices Inc's decision to set up research centers in Taiwan represented "a win-win strategy."
A ministry official told the media on the sidelines of the event that the ministry expects investment from the 12 companies to total around NT$46 billion over the next three years.
Asked whether the companies signing LOIs have always invested the pledged amount, the official said this is the case 80 to 90 percent of the time.
Other companies signing the LOI included JRE Business Development Taiwan Inc (台灣捷爾東事業開發) and Switzerland's SHL Medical.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary
RSS