Inadequate Infrastructure May Drive High-Tech Firms Out of Taiwan
November 7, 2000 (TAIPEI) -- Power cuts, water shortages and inadequate air-conditioning are an everyday fact of life in Taiwan, and these problems may be discouraging high-tech companies from building operations in Taiwan.
Taiwan's inadequate infrastructure has been "accepted" by manufacturers with a sense of resignation. But things appear to be changing.
A hopeful sign is that few people believe the claims made by the government that Taiwan wouldn't suffer power shortages as a result of its decision to halt construction of a fourth nuclear power plant. Another hopeful sign is that investors are beginning to act upon their frustrations. Some have given up on Taiwan altogether, and moved production to China. Others are complaining directly to the government, in ways that had rarely been seen before.
A transformer fire, followed by a malfunction in another transformer, interrupted the electrical power supply to the Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park on Thursday. This directly affected the production lines of 18 manufacturers, including United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC), D-Link Corp., Macronix International Corp. and CTX Opto-Elec Corp.
The power outage is said to have resulted in losses of NT$60 million (US$1.86 million) for the wafer fabrication companies concerned. They say that they intend to complain in the strongest terms to Taiwan Power Co. (Taipower), the state-owned electricity supplier. However, they will likely fail to obtain any compensation for the short power outage from insurance companies.
A senior executive at Macronix said this was the third power outage in the past 15 days. It shows that the promise by Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Hsin-yi that the government can maintain a stable power supply regardless of the future of the fourth nuclear power plant doesn't inspire confidence.
According to Taipower, the Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park has had its production disrupted by power cuts on 12 occasions in the past three months. Taipower said that the cuts were due either to an inadequate power supply or transformer malfunctions.
Because Taipower's existing power supply system is so fragile that the power fails regularly in Taiwan's high-tech science park, it's no wonder that massive advertising has recently failed to persuade residents that Taiwan will have an adequate electricity supply in seven years. That's when the fourth nuclear plant was due to be operational.
(Commercial Times, Taiwan) |
