Thats right, the government is committing close to one billion US dollars to bailing out the industry. The bailout (sounds like a US financial blog with that word doesn't it) is to consolidate the industry. The International Herald Tribune has an interesting article on the bailout:
Taiwan will inject as much as 30 billion Taiwan dollars, or $867 million, into Taiwan Memory, the new computer memory chip company that it is setting up to bail out its struggling memory chip sector.
"The less money the government invests, the better," said John Hsuan, an industry veteran named last week by the economics ministry to oversee establishment of the new maker of dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, chips. He said that he expected "no more" than 30 billion dollars from a national development fund to be invested in it.
The article continues
Taiwan announced the formation of Taiwan Memory last week and said the government would hold less than half of the company. The company would try to pull together the island's struggling chip makers, including Powerchip and Nanya Tech, and would also bring in technology from Elpida Memory of Japan or U.S.-based Micron Technology.
Actually this kind of stepping in by the government does not surprise me. The government have long been the silent overlords of the technology sector in Taiwan with the initiation of ITRI, ESRO, the Science Parks and so much more. To their credit, once things get going they step aside and let the entrepreneurs take charge. Even here we see the alliance is a little unwilling. The government doesn't want a majority stake in the company and I am pretty sure once the ship is sailing they will slowly disengage. I don't think the government is looking to nationalize the industry, they are just trying to strengthen it and make it more competitive, which isn't a bad thing.
International Herald Tribune: Taiwan set to inject $867 million for DRAMs
No comments:
Post a Comment