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進入《TAIPEI TIMES》 Trump hails Foxconn decision
Foxconn chairman Terry Gou gestures at the company’s Lunar New year celebration in Taipei yesterday. Photo: EPA-EFE / RITCHIE B. TONGO
HIGH-TECH HUB: Foxconn chairman Terry Gou said that he spoke on the telephone with Donald Trump, adding that the company’s US investment is the ‘right decision’
/ AFP, WASHINGTON
US President Donald Trump on Friday cheered the “great news” that Foxconn Technology Group （富士康科技集團） said it was going ahead with plans for a major factory in Wisconsin.
The company announced that following a conversation between Trump and Foxconn chairman Terry Gou （郭台銘）, it was “moving forward with our planned construction of a Gen 6 fab facility.”
It was a reversal from news earlier this week that the company was scaling back its plans to open a factory and create manufacturing jobs.
“Great news on Foxconn in Wisconsin after my conversation with Terry Gou!” Trump tweeted.
The reports that plans were being scaled back were a blow to the US administration since Trump had publicly claimed credit for the investment, which was backed by US$4 billion in controversial local tax breaks.
Foxconn, which makes devices and components for a host of major tech firms including Apple Inc, had planned to build a factory producing LCD flat screen televisions and create about 13,000 jobs.
Trump bragged about the plan and appeared alongside Gou at a groundbreaking ceremony last summer wielding golden shovels.
The company previously said the changing global economic climate — roiled by Trump’s trade spat with China, where Foxconn has most of its assembly lines — prompted it to revise its original plans.
However, the firm now says it is going ahead after “productive discussions between the White House and the company, and after a personal conversation between President Donald J. Trump and chairman Terry Gou,” according to the statement, which was published on Friday in media reports.
“This campus will serve both as an advanced manufacturing facility as well as a hub of high technology innovation for the region,” it said.
Foxconn said the decision also was based on a “comprehensive and systematic evaluation to help determine the best fit for our Wisconsin project.”
It did not provide details on employment or products, although it said it intended to “broaden our investment across Wisconsin far beyond our original plans.”
Speaking to thousands of Foxconn employees at a Lunar New Year celebration in Taipei yesterday, Gou said investing in the US “is undoubtedly a right decision and fits with future economic trends.”
Gou, who described the trade spat as a “major concern,” said he had spoken with Trump by telephone on Friday night.
“US President Trump ... shared with me the progress on the US-China trade negotiations and said it is going smoothly, and there will be a deal soon,” Gou said.
Media reports earlier this week quoted Gou’s assistant Louis Woo （胡國輝） as suggesting that the company might scrap the flat screen factory in favor of hiring more high-skilled engineers for research and development — a move that would lead to far fewer blue-collar jobs and run counter to Trump’s promises.
Foxconn — as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co （鴻海精密） is commonly referred to in the West — is the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer and assembles most of its products in China, leaving it vulnerable to Trump’s tariffs.
新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES
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