A senior Taiwanese official said that Taiwan would be “glad” to see its semiconductor companies invest in the European Union, but closer ties with the bloc, similar to Taipei’s connections with Washington, may help open the door for that.
To address a persistent global chip shortage, the EU has been recruiting Taiwan, a major semiconductor maker, as one of the “like-minded” collaborators it would like to cooperate with under the European Chips Act launched in February.
While Taiwan and the EU held high-level trade negotiations last month, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC), which had previously indicated that it was in the early stages of considering a potential expansion into Germany, stated less than a week after the meeting that it had no concrete plans for factories in Europe.
While he couldn’t speak for chip companies, Taiwan’s deputy economy minister Chen Chern-Kyi, whose portfolio includes economic relations with Europe, remarked late on Monday that they haven’t explicitly stated they won’t be visiting Europe.
“But the government’s position is that we are happy to see our companies having a global footprint, including the United States and Europe, who are both our like-minded partners. On a policy level we are of course very happy to see them deploying globally, and would be glad to see it happen,” he said.
Even in the absence of official diplomatic relations, Taipei has been eager to strengthen ties with other democracies in response to persistent Chinese political and military pressure intended to compel Taiwan to recognize China’s sovereignty claims.
One setback for EU aspirations came in February when Taiwan’s GlobalWafers Co Ltd failed in its effort to acquire German chip producer Siltronic for 4.35 billion euros ($4.36 billion). Chen claimed he was unaware that any fresh applications for EU chip projects had been submitted to the ministry, which must authorize significant overseas investments, so far this year.
He continued by saying that Taiwan desired to have deep, institutionalized trade, technology, and economic links with the EU similar to those they had with the US, where TSMC is constructing a $12 billion factory and GlobalWafers a $5 billion facility.
“Our interactions with the United States have been rather more, communication is closer. We also hope to develop the same close relationship with the EU,” Chen said.
“If it’s like this, it would be very helpful for our companies for their attention towards and knowledge of Europe.”
A bilateral investment deal between Taiwan and the EU has also been pushed, but no progress has been made. Chen stated that although that is still a policy objective, transactions that are currently “more realistic” are not being disregarded.
“We even hope to have a free trade agreement with the EU, which would be the best. The EU has lots of FTAs with other countries, and if the EU is willing, we are too.”
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