Foxconn: Jiashan's hospitality leads to business expansion

Foxconn's factory in Jiashan county, Jiaxing, Zhejiang province [Photo/thehour.cn]

After 10 years of development, Foxconn, an electronics manufacturing giant from Taiwan, announced plans in June to invest $300 million in expanding its production scale at its plant in Jiashan county, Jiaxing, Zhejiang province.

On March 1, 2008, Terry Gou, Foxconn founder and chairman, said at the launch of the company's Jiashan sci-tech park that the group's investment in the county was not only for the construction of factories. It also aimed to highlight local industrial characteristics and seek integrated development of different sectors.

The sci-tech park in Jiashan was the sixth of its kind Foxconn had built on the Chinese mainland and is an important base in its strategic layout in East China. With an area of nearly 200 hectares, the Jiashan factory has over 10,000 employees and is engaged in the research, development and production of computers, communication products, consumer electronics, automotive electronics and precision moulds.

Chairman Guo said he greatly appreciated the advantages and convenience of setting up business in Jiashan. He said the county is located at the intersection of Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Shanghai and the cultural atmosphere there is rich and profound. Moreover, the high efficiency and transparent government services gave him much confidence.

"Jiashan's hospitality makes Foxconn stay and expand," said an official of the group.

"The purpose of increasing investment is to further expand and strengthen the industrial chain in Jiashan, and to speed up the transformation and upgrading of the local park," said the official. He said the expansion project will start in the first quarter of 2019 and, once completed, the whole production base in the county is expected to have an annual output value of 8 billion yuan ($1.15 billion).

Jiaxing is striving to optimize its investment structure and is receiving more inward capital in the high-tech service industry. Data from the city's commerce department showed that in the first half of 2018, it introduced 187 new foreign projects with investment of $3.51 billion, up 6.9 percent year-on-year.

To create a better environment for foreign businesses, Jiaxing is actively pushing forward the building of an international support system, which may include international communities, international schools, hospitals for foreign expats and a group of service institutes for legal, financial and human resources affairs.

An assembly line at Foxconn's Jiashan factory [Photo/thehour.cn]