TAIPEI (Reuters) – Germany has asked Taiwan to persuade Taiwanese manufacturers to help reduce the shortage of semiconductor chips in the automotive sector, which is hampering its nascent economic recovery from the pandemic COVID-19.
Automakers around the world are closing assembly lines due to problems in the delivery of semiconductors, which in some cases have been aggravated by the actions of the former Trump administration against China’s main chip factories.
The shortage affected Volkswagen VOWG_p.DE, Ford Motor Co FN, Subaru Corp 7270.T, Toyota Motor Corp 7203.T, Nissan Motor Co Ltd 7201.T, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and other car manufacturers.
In a letter seen by Reuters on Sunday, German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier asked his Taiwanese counterpart Wang Mei-hua to address the issue in negotiations with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC) 2330.TW, the largest manufacturer chip contractor in the world and one of the main German suppliers.
“I would be pleased if you could address this issue and underline the importance of additional semiconductor capabilities for the German automotive industry for TSMC,” wrote Altmaier.
Altmaier said the goal is to enable additional capacities and semiconductor deliveries in the short and medium term.
The German auto industry was already in direct talks with TSMC about walking deliveries and there were “very constructive” signals from TSMC to address the problem, he wrote.
A spokeswoman for the German Ministry of Economy said she was monitoring the situation very closely and was in talks on the matter with the auto industry.
DIGITAL SOVEREIGNTY
To reduce dependencies on Asian suppliers and avoid similar problems in the future, Berlin now plans to increase state support to increase semiconductor production capacities in Germany and Europe, the spokeswoman added.
Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs said it had received orders through diplomatic channels to help reduce the chip shortage for the automotive sector, although it was not aware of Altmaier’s letter.
She said she started negotiations with domestic chip suppliers in response to requests from other countries and asked them to “provide full assistance”.
“The relevant supply and demand situation is also closely related to the plans of the automotive chip factories to reduce inventory during the off-season,” said the ministry.
TSMC, in a statement, said the issue of chip shortages for automakers was very important to them.
“It is our highest priority and TSMC is working closely with our automotive customers to resolve capacity support issues,” he said.
Reporting by Michael Nienaber in BERLIN and Jeanny Kao and Ben Blanchard in TAIPEI; Ed