Yageo and Five More Taiwanese Companies Return Home from China

Source: The Epoch Times news

Yageo plans to invest NT$16.5 billion ($530 million) to expand its manufacturing facilities in Taiwan and adopt highly automated production processes. The new factories will create 700 jobs.

Taiwanese firms that have significant China operations are beginning to return back to home base.

Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs recently approved six Taiwanese companies’ investments plans on the island, all of them firms that had production bases in mainland China. Total investments from these six companies exceed NT$30.8 billion ($1 billion) and will add more than 1,200 jobs.

The Taiwanese government has been encouraging Taiwanese companies to return home to invest since the beginning of the year.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs launched a “welcome-back” program on Jan. 1, providing incentives such as free rent for the first two years, favorable bank loans, and access to tax consultation to them.

Since the program’s launch, 30 Taiwanese companies have decided to move back to Taiwan from China, bringing combined investments valued at NT$120 billion ($3.9 billion) and promising 15,000 jobs to local workers.

The six companies that received approval for their investments on April 12 are Sunspring Metal Corporation, Tong Yang Group, Repon Industrial Corp, Johnson Health Tech Co, Yageo Corp and an unnamed large-scale electronic components company.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs said in its statement that these six companies are all bellwethers for their respective industries. It added that China’s ongoing trade war with the United States—in which the latter has imposed punitive tariffs on more than $200 billion worth of Chinese-manufactured goods—has made these Taiwanese firms more determined to stay on the island, as they had established their factories in mainland China and faced revenue losses due to the U.S. tariffs.

Sunspring Metal, the world’s largest maker of zinc alloy faucet components, is based in Taichung City, Taiwan. It owns over 60 percent of the market share in North America and Europe.

Impacted by the US-China trade war, the company decided to invest NT$1.6 billion ($51.8 million) to build new plants and automation warehouses in the Central Taiwan Science Park, which will help expand its production lines and generate about 100 new jobs.

Yageo, the world’s largest manufacturer of chip resistors, a type of electronic component, with a global market share of 34 percent. It has an R&D center and a high-end product manufacturing base in Kaohsiung City located in southern Taiwan. It also has 19 additional production bases, 14 R&D centers, and six JIT (just-in-time, an inventory management method) warehouses around the globe.

Yageo plans to invest NT$16.5 billion ($530 million) to expand its manufacturing facilities in Taiwan and adopt highly automated production processes. The new factories will create 700 jobs.