The Trump administration in the U.S. is now fixing its eyes on ZTE and Huawei of mainland China and has placed export limitations and carried out investigations on them, actions that translate into the U.S. wanting to restrain China’s already flourishing 5G telecom development. Meanwhile, the Taiwanese PCB industry has also aggressively invested in 5G applications, and even Japanese manufacturers like Nitto Boseki and Hitachi Chemical have come to Taiwan to jump on the bandwagon. 

 

       The investment focus of Japanese manufacturers coming to Taiwan lies in the upstream raw materials of PCB, including the CCL and glass fiber industry, to strive for the high-frequency, high-speed signal market needed for RFPCB manufacturing, yet already flown-away PCB raw materials. Among them, Hitachi Chemical has announced that it will invest NT$2 billion in Taiwan to set up a subsidiary company and establish CCL for PCB at its factory compound, which will mainly be used on such applications as 5G, ADA, and AI.  

 

       Meanwhile, Nitto Boseki, a major Japanese player in glass fiber, considers 5G telecom development a promising prospect, so it will use 10% of its premium to openly purchase as much as 35.22% of shares in Baotek. In addition to the 14.88% of Baotek shares transferred and sold by the institutional stockholder, Chuang You Investment, this should render the stockholding of Nitto Boseki over 50.1%, making it the majority shareholder.  

 

       As pointed out by peers of the PCB industry, although Nitto Boseki has already acquired more than half of the shares and seized management, whether Nitto Boseki will introduce new equipment to assist production of new 5G materials with Baotek is what really counts. Or Nitto Boseki may merely be using Baotek as the secondary base for moving its original production from Japan, while 5G application products are still manufactured in Japan. (Source of information: cnYes)