May 14, 2001

Taiwan is expected to emerge as the world's leading design and manufacturing center of flat display panels, according to Mr. H.B. Chen, chairman of the Taiwan TFT-LCD Association.

Chen made the statement at a strategic cooperation meeting sponsored by the China External Trade Development Council (CETRA).

In order to provide for the increasing demand of flat panel displays from notebook PCs, mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs) , information appliances (IA) digital cameras, Taiwan's entrepreneurs have set up seven flat panel display factories since 1998, producing both TFT-LCD and STN-LCD.

In order to stay competitive all the flat panel display makers in Taiwan have to stay among the top three in the world market, Chen pointed out. Chen's own company, Acer Display Technology, merged with Unipac recently in order to become a world class company. He further predicted that mergers or formations of strategic alliances among flat panel display makers in Taiwan might occur in t he future.

CETRA has launched its "International Sourcing Center" (ISC) project to encourage well-established international buyers to source their supplies through it. According to CETRA, well-noted companies such as Dell, Epson, GE, Hitachi, HP, IBM, Matsushiata, Mercury, Motorola, Nokia, Philips, Renault, Sony, Textron, and Toshiba have been invited by CETRA to source flat panels through its ISC arrangement.