The EMS giant, Quanta Computer, announced that it would invest 1 billion baht (about NT$1 billion) in setting up a factory in Thailand, thus creating a third production line in addition to China and Taiwan, in response to customer demand. In Q3 of 2018, Delta Electronics announced that it would invest 700 baht to acquire the privatization of a 79.07% stake in the listed Thai company DET, which is also seen as an expansion of production outside China.
   Amidst the ongoing US-China trade war, Foxconn, Asus, etc. are also investing and setting up factories in India, Indonesia, Vietnam, and other places. The system and the OEM’s actions of these industry leaders are viewed as a phenomenon for the industry to move and disperse its manufacturing focus.
In terms of the overall industry, China is still the predominant country of overseas investments by Taiwan PCB factories.      Although most southward investments are still in an evaluation stage, seeing the short-term large-scale investment action is still hard to see as such is restricted by a lack of talents and supply chain of the industry.
    Currently, only a few PCB factories, including APCB Group, Chin Poon Industrial, Global Brands Manufacture, and Apex International, have invested in ASEAN countries like Thailand. They mainly manufacture automobile panels and consumer electronics PCBs. Before the US-China trade war, large-scale PCB factories had already conducted in-depth evaluations of investment possibilities in Southeast Asia, such as Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, and other countries, because they were concerned about the environmental factors of China’s Yangtze River Delta Economic Zone. 
    The evaluation results show that even though Southeast Asian countries have cheap wages and low labor costs, the factories are subjected to the significant hindrances of a lack of talent and supply chain, thus delaying investments there. Therein, an inadequate supply of mid- and high-level technical experts and engineers is the most problematic issue. The PCB factories worry that the insufficiency of human resources will affect production, and they would find difficulties in eliminating equipment failure in time. These are unfavorable problems for production.
     Furthermore, the industrial settlement, supply chain, raw material supply, etc., in mainland China have gradually taken shape as Taiwanese PCB factories have ventured there for the past 20 years. Another reason preventing PCB manufacturers from expanding their southward investments is that an incomplete industrial supply chain will force them to rely on importing most raw materials, such as copper-clad laminates (CCL), etching chemicals, etc.
    China is still the predominant area of overseas investments by Taiwan PCB factories, Zhen Ding Tech. and Tripod Technology have already become two PCB manufacturers with top output values in mainland China. (News source: cnYES)