TAIPEI (Reuters) – Germany has called on Taiwan to persuade Taiwanese manufacturers to help alleviate the shortage of semiconductor chips in the automotive sector, which is hampering its fledgling economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Automakers around the world are shutting down assembly lines due to problems with semiconductor delivery, which in some cases have been exacerbated by former Trump administration actions against major Chinese chipmakers.
The shortage has 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 talks with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) 2330. TW, the maker of largest chips in the world and one of the leading German contract manufacturers.
“I would be delighted if you could take on this issue and stress the importance of additional semiconductor capabilities for the German automotive industry for TSMC,” Altmaier wrote.
Altmaier said the goal was to allow for additional short- and medium-term semiconductor capacities and deliveries.
The German auto industry was already in direct talks with TSMC over hiking deliveries and there had been “very constructive” signals from TSMC to resolve the issue, he wrote.
A spokeswoman for the German economy ministry said she was monitoring the situation very closely and was in talks on the issue with the car industry.
DIGITAL SOVEREIGNTY
To reduce dependence on Asian suppliers and avoid similar problems in the future, Berlin plans to increase state support to increase semiconductor production capacity in Germany and Europe, the spokeswoman added.
Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs said it received requests through diplomacy to help alleviate the shortage of chips for the auto sector, even though it was unaware of Altmaier’s letter.
He said he had initiated talks 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 the inventory during the low season,” the ministry said.
TSMC, in a statement, said the issue of chip shortages for car companies was very important to them.
“It’s our top priority and TSMC works closely with our automotive customers to address capacity support issues,” he said.
Reports by Michael Nienaber in BERLIN and Jeanny Kao and Ben Blanchard in TAIPEI; Ed