Foxconn could spend $10 billion

Chairman to share expansion plans by August

TAIPEI, Taiwan - The chairman of Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn said Thursday it may spend more than $10 billion to set up manufacturing in the United States and will announce investment plans by early August for at least three states.

Terry Gou gave no new information about where Foxconn will locate a U.S. display panel factory he said in January would cost up to $7 billion to build. That announcement triggered a flurry of lobbying by state leaders hoping to attract the investment, which he said might generate as many as 50,000 jobs.

Wisconsin is clearly in the mix for a Foxconn factory.

Requests for proposals presented to municipal officials in Wisconsin about a month ago indicate the company is looking for two development sites, one covering 400 acres and the other 1,000 acres — the latter parcel an unheard-of size for a single company’s manufacturing operation in Wisconsin.

In early June, meanwhile, Gov. Scott Walker and state economic development officials, without previously announcing any plans, flew to Japan on a whirlwind trip “to pursue a significant foreign direct investment opportunity.”

Japan is headquarters to electronics Sharp Corp., which Foxconn acquired last year. Sharp makes display panels.

And just last week President Donald Trump, visiting Milwaukee, alluded to negotiations with an unspecified company and said Walker might get “a very happy surprise very soon.”

Wisconsin, however, has competition.

Foxconn has been in touch with the White House and expects to conclude negotiations by the end of July or early August, Gou said at a news conference Thursday. He said the first investment agreement should cover at least three states, with at least three others to be added later.

The display panel factory, if built, would be a political tro-

phy for Trump, who has promised to revive American manufacturing in the Midwest.

Gou mentioned Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Texas — along with Wisconsin — as manufacturing states with which Foxconn hopes to work. He gave no indication, though, whether any of them might be in the initial investment agreement.

Gou had said in January that Pennsylvania was the leading candidate for the panel factory, which would work with Sharp.

Overall, Gou said Thursday, “we will provide at least tens of thousands of job opportunities.”

But while officials from multiple states scramble after the possibility

of such an economic boost, there also is cause for caution. Foxconn hasn’t followed through on some of its previously announced plans.

In November 2013, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett announced that Foxconn planned to invest $30 million in a “high-end technology manufacturing facility” expected to create 500 jobs over the following two years.

The company had a small research operation in Harrisburg, Pa., and the new factory was to be opened in that area. The research operation is still there, but not the factory.

“It just never happened,” David Black, president and CEO of the Harrisburg Regional Chamber, the area’s economic development organization, said Thursday. “I wish I could tell you what happened with it . ... Long story short, nothing ever came of it.”

Foxconn is the biggest contract manufacturer of smartphones and other devices for Apple, Sony, Blackberry and other brands. Its success has made Gou Taiwan’s richest businessman.

The company’s plans for the U.S. combine hardware manufacturing and software development in technologies including artificial intelligence and automation, Gou said at a meeting with shareholders.

Asked later at the news conference how much Foxconn might invest during the fiveyear plan, he said it might exceed $10 billion.

Expansion into the United States would reduce Foxconn’s reliance on China, where it has the bulk of its operations and employs about 1 million people.