By Safon Liu, International Affairs Department of TEEMA
Bloomberg News reported that the India government has been actively inviting TSMC, Intel, Global Foundries and Samsung, looking forward to attracting these multinational chip makers to set up local manufacturing hubs with promoting India’s high-tech manufacturing ability. At the end of last year, the Semiconductor and Display Fab Schemes which will subsidize a half of cost of factory construction and development to semiconductor companies were announced. On February 14 2022, Vedanta, an Indian multinational group, proceeded to the semiconductor manufacturing with joint-venture of Foxconn, the biggest EMS company from Taiwan, to make the bilateral cooperative MOU for echoing the initiative by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
India official delegation led by Secretary Anurag Jain from Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Ministry of Commerce and Industry visited industrial leaders, superiors and government officers in Taiwan on the middle of May and participated in the High-Level India Taiwan Business Roundtable held in Grand Hyatt Taipei on May 18. Vice Minister Chuan-Neng Lin of Ministry of Economic Affairs co-hosted the meeting with Secretary Jain. In order to strengthen the economic relationship between Taiwan and India, the "Agreement on Standardization and Conformity Assessment Procedure" and the “Agreement on Intellectual Property Rights” were signed by Representative Baushuan Ger of Taipei Economic and Cultural Center in India and Director General Gourangalal Das of India-Taipei Association under Vice Minister Lin’s and Secretary Jain’s both witness.
Delegates from India were high-level management from tycoon enterprises such as Reliance, JSW, Tata, Adani, Vedanta. Taiwanese Industrial attendees were from Foxconn, Delta Electronics, China Steel, United Renewable Energy, Winbond, Yageo, Bank SinoPac, Taiwan Textile Federation, TAMI, TAITRA, TIBA, TEEMA. The discussion on both sides focused on “How to cooperate with potential business opportunities, especially on the field of semiconductor manufacturing”.
During the Q&A session, Taiwanese enterprises proposed questions and concerned about the investment in India. TEEMA Board Director R. T. Tsai, accordingly being the Vice President of Delta Electronics, said that Taiwanese manufacturers in India has faced over 10% of import tariffs of raw materials but 0% of tariffs to Japanese and Korean companies because of the nation-to-nation free trade agreement. We look forward to the tariffs declination to Taiwanese investors with India government’s assistance so as to encourage Taiwanese enterprises to invest deeply in India.
In addition to enlarging product items covered by Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, we suggest to expand the benefits to manufacturers of electronic components. India officer responded that Taiwanese investors can keep to coordinate with the window of India side in view of import tariffs; besides, Taiwanese companies are welcome to put the investment on semiconductor manufacturing in India. Other suggestions regarding the Taiwan-India free trade agreement, industrial zone, Indian talent, water resource recycling,
sustainable environmental protection, electric vehicle and so on were proposed by Taiwan Textile Federation, TIBA, China Steel, Foxconn, Tron Energy.
