US semiconductor industry leaders yesterday called for Taiwan and the US to sign a free-trade agreement and for Taiwan to enter the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the Ministry of Economic Affairs said.
More than 100 Taiwanese and US semiconductor industry leaders and government officials joined a virtual meeting, which included “prominent” officials from US President Joe Biden’s administration, the ministry said.
Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua (王美花) told reporters in Taipei yesterday that she would not name the US officials out of a “longstanding mutual understanding.”
Photo: CNA
“Today’s meeting was mainly between industry leaders in the Taiwanese and US semiconductor supply chains,” Wang said.
On the US side, participants included Qualcomm, Corning, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, and the Semiconductor Industry Foundation.
Representatives from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — the world’s biggest contract chipmaker — SEMI (a Taiwanese semiconductor industry association) and other companies and associations also participated.
TSMC general counsel Sylvia Fang (方淑華) and United Microelectronics (聯電) chief financial officer Liu Chi-tung (劉啟東) were among the participants.
The attendees pushed for closer cooperation between the two nations, Wang said.
“The word that came up over and over again is ‘interdependence,’” Wang said. “US and Taiwanese semiconductor supply chains rely on each other.”
“On the US side, it was suggested that Taiwan and the US should sign a free-trade agreement to deepen our cooperation,” Wang said.
“They would also like to see Taiwan and [South] Korea join the CPTPP, as well as the US,” she added.
She said that they want the US to push for an information-technology agreement within the WTO, which would “further reduce tariffs on semiconductors.”
TSMC also presented its plans to establish a manufacturing facility in Arizona, she said.
The meeting, which was conducted through videoconferencing, was the first supply chain cooperation meeting held by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the US and the American Institute in Taiwan, Wang said, adding that more would follow.
A shortage of chips used in auto production was not a main topic at the meeting, she said.
However, the US relayed its thanks to Taiwanese chipmakers for agreeing to give automotive chips priority to try to ease the shortage, she added.
“Industry leaders and government officials thanked Taiwan for our help with regard to auto chips,” Wang said.
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