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Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs said on Sunday that it has received requests through diplomatic channels to ease a shortage of chips for the auto sector and that it has asked local firms to provide “full assistance”.
Automakers around the world are shutting assembly lines because of a global shortage of semiconductors that stems from the former Trump administration’s actions against key Chinese chip factories, according to industry officials.
The shortage has affected big names in the auto world, some of them being Ford Motor Co, Subaru Corp, Toyota Motor Corp, Volkswagen, Nissan Motor Co Ltd, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles amongst others.
“Since the end of last year, diplomatic channels have indeed received requests from relevant countries due to the shortage of automotive chips,” the Ministry of Economic Affairs said, after reports that German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier had written to Taiwan’s government about the problem.
The ministry has said it had not yet received the letter from Germany and could not comment on its contents. The ministry said major international automakers were not direct customers of Taiwanese semiconductor chip makers, instead, other automotive chip makers place orders with Taiwan manufacturers and sell them to carmakers.
“The relevant supply and demand situation is also closely related to the plans of automotive chip factories to reduce inventory during the off-season,” the ministry said.
The ministry has also “asked the chip manufacturers to provide full assistance”. TSMC, in a statement, said the issue of chips shortages for auto companies was very important to them.
“It is our top priority, and TSMC is working closely with our automotive customers to resolve the capacity support issues,” it said.
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