Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) plans to invest NT$25 billion (US$821.13 million) in Kaohsiung over the next three years, the company and the Kaohsiung City Government said yesterday.
The two sides signed a letter of intent at a ceremony at the Kaohsiung Software Park, attended by Vice Premier Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦), Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) and Hon Hai chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉), the city said in a statement.
Hon Hai, the world’s largest contract electronics maker and Apple Inc’s most important iPhone assembler, plans to establish the company’s Southern Taiwan service center, along with an international research and training center, in the city’s Asia New Bay Area (亞洲新灣區), the statement said.
Photo: Ge You-hao, Taipei Times
Hon Hai is also set to work with Kaohsiung to develop a comprehensive plan for smart cities, to be based on the company’s smart city platform, CityGPT, the company said in a separate statement.
“Kaohsiung has a port, an airport and vast outlying terrain. The planned infrastructure will make the smart city initiative complete,” Liu said in the statement.
The three-year, NT$25 billion investment is expected to create 2,000 jobs, the company said.
Hon Hai operates manufacturing facilities in the city’s Ciaotou Science and Technology Park (橋頭科學園區) and Ho Fa Industrial Park (和發產業園區) that make electric buses and batteries for electric vehicles (EVs).
An electric bus plant in the Ciaotou park is expected to begin mass production in 2025, initially producing 500 units per year, Hon Hai said.
The company plans to raise the figure to 1,000 by 2028, mainly for the domestic market, it added.
Hon Hai’s plant for lithium iron phosphate EV batteries in Ho Fa Industrial Park is expected to mass produce 1.2 gigawatt-hours of energy in the third quarter of next year, it said.
The company is expanding its EV business as it seeks to diversify its revenue base and to rely less on consumer electronics, which have contributed to a fall in gross margin.
Hon Hai and Kaohsiung, the first city to use Hon Hai’s Model T electric buses, have been discussing smart city initiatives for more than a year.
Hon Hai’s Asia New Bay Area investment plan follows several other firms such as Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控), IBM Corp, Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) and AUO Corp (友達) in efforts to increase investment in Kaohsiung, as the government aims to accelerate the city’s development of 5G, artificial intelligence of things, information technology and digital industries.
Investments in the Asia New Bay Area reached about NT$15.4 billion at the end of last year, and generated an output value of NT$32.7 billion, the Kaohsiung government said.
Hon Hai’s new investment pledges came after founder Terry Gou (郭台銘) announced on Wednesday last week that he is seeking to be the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential nominee for next year’s national election.
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