Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and other related companies would add ￥11.2 trillion (US$78.31 billion) to Japan’s chipmaking hot spot Kumamoto Prefecture over the next decade, a local bank’s analysis said.
Kyushu Financial Group, a lender based in Kumamoto’s capital, almost doubled its projection for the economic impact that the chip sector would bring to the region compared to its estimate a year earlier, a presentation on Thursday said.
The bank said that 171 firms had made new investments since November 2021, up from 90 in an earlier analysis.
Photo: EPA-EFE
TSMC’s Kumamoto location was once a sleepy farming area, but has undergone rapid growth as part of Japan’s chipmaking ambitions. TSMC, which opened its first plant there in February, is to start building a second by the end of the year and has shown intentions to construct a third.
The local economy is racing to keep up, with skyrocketing land prices and new infrastructure planned to deal with congestion from an influx of industry personnel. Kumamoto’s growth spurt has been supported by generous government subsidies, including grants totaling about ￥1.1 trillion for TSMC’s two plants to date.
Cooperation between Taiwan and Japan is increasingly crucial as supply chains become shorter and more regionally focused, a compound semiconductor company chairman said yesterday at a Taiwan-Japan exchange forum.
The global division of labor has been disrupted by the US-China trade and technology war, WIN Semiconductors Corp (穩懋) chairman Dennis Chen (陳進財) said.
“We have come to a point where there is no turning back, no matter who wins the presidency [in the next US presidential election],” he said during Semicon Taiwan.
However, localizing semiconductor manufacturing — widely regarded as a strategic resource — is easier said than done, as “every country has its specialty following 40 years of [globalized] supply chain development,” Chen said.
Taiwan and Japan are highly complementary in terms of their supply chain division of labor, he said.
“Taiwan is top in foundry and advanced packaging, and Japan leads in materials and equipment,” Chen said, citing Japan’s official numbers showing that it has 48 percent of the semiconductor material global market share and 31 percent of the equipment market share.
The two countries are also geographically and culturally close to each other, especially in terms of attitude toward work, he added.
On top of complementary dominant supply chain positions, Taiwan and Japan are on the side of democracy as “geopolitical changes have divided the world into two camps.”
In this democracy camp, more cooperation with the US, Europe, South Korea and Southeast Asia in forming a new supply chain is expected, he added.
Chen also said that customers in the US have urged his company to implement the “Taiwan plus one” strategy — manufacturing bases outside Taiwan.
In response, Chen said: “I believe Taiwan and Japan can take our cooperation to another level as we are natural partners in the industry.”
STRONG INTEREST: Analysts have pointed to optimism in TSMC’s growth prospects in the artificial intelligence era as the cause of the rising number of shareholders The number of people holding shares of chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) hit a new high last week despite a decline in its stock price, the Taiwan Depository and Clearing Corp (TDCC, 台灣集保) said. The number of TSMC shareholders rose to 2.46 million as of Friday, up 75,536 from a week earlier, TDCC data showed. The stock price fell 1.34 percent during the same week to close at NT$1,840 (US$57.55). The decline in TSMC’s share price resulted from volatility in global tech stocks, driven by rising international crude oil prices as the war against Iran continues. Dealers said
PRICE HIKES: The war in the Middle East would not significantly disrupt supply in the short term, but semiconductor companies are facing price surges for materials Taiwan’s semiconductor companies are not facing imminent supply disruptions of essential chemicals or raw materials due to the war in the Middle East, but surges in material costs loom large, industry association SEMI Taiwan said yesterday. The association’s comments came amid growing concerns that supplies of helium and other key raw materials used in semiconductor production could become a choke point after Qatar shut down its liquefied natural gas (LNG) production and helium output earlier this month due to the conflict. Qatar is the second-largest LNG supplier in the world and accounts for about 33 percent of global helium output. Helium is
Taiwan’s natural gas supply remains stable through the end of May, despite rising concerns about potential disruptions to Qatari liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies due to escalating conflicts in the Middle East, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. The ministry in a statement said that Taiwan has completed preparations for natural gas supply and shipping schedules through the end of May. It has also made plans to increase natural gas imports from regions outside the Middle East in June to ensure a stable supply, it added. Taiwan sources natural gas from 14 countries and is not solely dependent on the Middle East,
China is clamping down on fertilizer exports to protect its domestic market, industry sources said, putting an additional strain on global markets that were already grappling with shortages caused by the US-Israeli war on Iran. China is among the largest fertilizer exporters — shipping more than US$13 billion of it last year — and it has a history of controlling exports to keep prices low for farmers. Shipments through the war-blocked Strait of Hormuz account for about one-third of the sea-borne supply. This month, Beijing banned exports of nitrogen-potassium fertilizer blends and certain phosphate varieties, sources said. The ban, which has not
RSS