Taiwan-owned Sharp poised to pull out of China to evade Trump tariffs

台資夏普準備退出中國以避川普關稅

Sharp move: Foxconn-owned Sharp preparing to pull plants out of China if Trump imposes next wave of tariffs


TAIPEI (Taiwan News) -- Sharp, a subsidiary of Taiwan-based Foxconn Group, is preparing to pull its plants out of China and possibly move some to Taiwan if Trump's threatened next wave of tariffs takes place.

At a news conference on Tuesday (May 28), Tai Jeng-wu (戴正吳), president and chairman of Sharp Corp., said that the company is making preparations to move its factories that manufacture PCs and multipurpose machines for the U.S. markets away from China to other nations, reported Asahi Shimbun. The company is preparing to pull the plants to protect itself from the anticipated next wave of tariffs against China threatened by the Trump administration.

After announcing the raising of tariffs on US$200 billion worth of goods imported from China from 10 percent to 25 percent earlier this month, Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on the remaining US$300 billion worth of products shipped from the communist country. As this next wave of tariffs would affect a broad swath of consumer electronics that had previously been spared, including PCs and multipurpose machines, Sharp is reading itself to shift its manufacturing to countries not subject to the tariffs.

The newspaper cited Sharp as saying that it is planning to shift its production of multipurpose machines from its factories in China to its facilities in Thailand. Sharp is mulling the transfer of its PC production for the U.S. from China to Taiwan or Vietnam.

Meanwhile, Sharp's mother company, Foxconn, is planning on moving the manufacture of liquid crystal panels from China to Mexico.

Tai told Asahi Shimbun that shifting the plants to other countries will lessen the impact on the company by the US-China trade war. He added that the U.S. government ban on U.S. firms selling products to Huawei will enable Sharp to "grab the market share and gain momentum."

Tai said Sharp fully intends to take advantage of Huawei's setbacks to surpass it in the smartphone and communication device market.

Although Sharp was a Japanese-owned company for over 100 years, it was acquired by Taiwan's Foxconn in 2016. As Foxconn's founder and chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) is currently making a bid for Taiwan's 2020 presidential race, he announced he would step down earlier this month.