People with knowledge of the situation said on Wednesday that a delegation of Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturers visited Chandigarh and Gujarat this week as part of an exercise to find suitable locations for setting up plants in India.
The crew, which was led by Taiwanese authorities, spent four days in Mohali and Gujarat, visiting the Semi-Conductor Laboratory (SCL) and the Dholera Smart City. The delegation also met with Indian officials, who gave them an overview of their country's semiconductor mission, which was unveiled in December and calls for production-linked incentives (PLIs) worth approximately $10 billion for the whole supply chain.
There was no formal statement of the delegation's visit from either side. Under the condition of anonymity, a government official in India stated that New Delhi welcomes all foreign investments that adhere to local laws, and Taiwan is not an exception. India and Taiwan have business ties, and the official cited an MoU for collaboration in agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry, fisheries, and food processing between the Indian ministry of agriculture and the Taiwanese Taipei Economic and Cultural Center.
The global supply chain for semiconductors depends on Taiwan. The delegation included Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (PSMC), the third-largest contract chip manufacturer in Taiwan and the sixth-largest in the world.
Taiwan will send a delegation of semiconductor makers to India to advance cooperation in the critical industry, including potential cooperation under the PLI initiative for large-scale electronics production, as first reported by HT on July 21.
According to those with knowledge of the situation, the visit by the Taiwanese delegation was a follow-up to two visits by the Indian delegation and several meetings held since last year to discuss collaboration in the manufacture of the chips necessary for electronics products, communications devices, health care systems, and motor vehicles. India buys polyvinyl chloride, flat-rolled products of alloyed steel, electronic integrated circuits, machine accessories, solar cells, digital cameras, and voice communication devices while exporting naphtha, minerals, refined copper cathodes, zinc, aluminium, and pig iron to Taiwan.