A friend in Manila sent me this article from last Friday.
I want to figure out what the 8 Taiwan companies are so I can approach them and pitch services to them. I reached out to the writer of that article, but from Google searches, I realize it is based almost verbatim on a press release – other newspapers have the same text and no mention of the company names.
I am not having much luck yet finding the Philippine Board of Investments website (although I have found the Freedom of Information website where apparently people make requests for information, i.e., what I am trying to do now – so that could come in hand)
I have sent a note over to the Trade Attache at MECO (the Philippine “embassy” in Taiwan). Let’s see if he come sback with anything useful.
Is there a way I can find out from the Taiwan end of things what the 8 companies are? Apparently, they also visited last March. Does anyone here in the tech industry know what those firms might be?
This article specifically says the 8 companies were not named:
However, this article mentions Tawanese semiconductor recruitment in SE Asia, and lists 8 companies. Could be the same 8 companies that traveled to the Philippines?
During the events, members of Taiwan’s semiconductor industry and academia jointly promoted the advantages of Taiwan’s semiconductor learning and employment environment, including TSMC, MediaTek, UMC, Phison, ASE, Realtek, SPIL, Ardentec, NTU, NCKU, NYCU, NSYSU, NUK, NTUT, NKUST, CSU, etc.
In the next stage, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, India and other countries with similar talent qualities and local conditions to Taiwan will be included in the recruitment plans
“expanding their presence” it said, meaning, if accurate, they are already there to some degree. “presence” could mean anything, but it might help to see who is already there while you’re waiting for details.
The Philippines is mostly involved in downstream processes like encapsulation rather than IC fabrication, and AFAIK it’s done by corporations with majority Phils ownership (because rules). “Expanding their presence” might involve little more than investment, consulting, etc.