Taiwan companies in India to explore opportunities

A 19-member delegation from the Taiwan Semiconductor Industry Association (TSIA) was in Bangalore today to explore opportunities for collaboration in India. On this visit, the TSIA is seeking avenues for investment in manufacturing, and technology partnerships with Indian companies. 



Choon Leong Lou, president and CEO of Star Technologies, a testing company, said that Taiwan-based companies are looking at partnering with Indian companies and investing in India. "We have domain expertise and technology in all areas of the semiconductor supply chain such as IC testing, design, wafer fab and EDA tools. We want to play a part in catering to the Indian electronic equipment market that will touch $300 billion by 2015."



He also called for collaboration between India and Taiwan to beat the likes of North America and Japan for high-profitability products. "We cannot survive as a small or medium sized company anymore if we want to compete in the global market."



Echoing his view, Ganapathy Subramanian, CEO, Cosmic Circuits, said that Taiwan would need to diversify its investments in geographies other than China and the US. He cited the example of D-link, A Taiwanese company that is thriving in India and has also set up three plants in Goa. 



Rajendra Khare, president, ISA, said both the associations intend to have a blueprint and roadmap on what kind of investment Taiwan is interested in making and also identify the constraints that they find in India. 



Eric Tang, VP, Powerchip Semiconductor, said that culture and communication were the big issues that need to be tackled between India and Taiwan. 



Taiwan-based companies have been outsourcing software development work to firms in India and some of them like Asus and Hynex have established their own base in India.