Dec. 15, 2000

An executive of Texas Instruments Taiwan said this week that the company does not plan to set up plants in China, thus turning down overtures to this end from a senior official of China's Ministry of Information Industry.

Zhang Qi, a director general of this ministry had visited TI Taiwan to encourage the company to invest in China. TI Taiwan, located at the northern Taiwan township of Chung Ho, specializes in IC testing and packaging.

Taiwan Branch general manager T.C. Lee noted that TI has no immediate need to set up plants in China, since it already operates factories in the Philippines and Malaysia, where production costs are at par with China.

Besides TI, Philips is the other foreign manufacturer operating IC packaging and testing plants in Taiwan, since Motorola soled its IC packaging and testing facilities to the local Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc. in 1998. Both Motorola and Philips operate plants in China mainland.

TI admits that the mainland is an important market and sits sales there are estimated to exceed The over US$ 300 million posted by the company in Taiwan this year.