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.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS