Multinationals eye China's Northeast despite downturn

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-03-18 14:07

SHENYANG -- Multinational corporations are closing factories and pulling back investment amid the global economic downturn, but not in China's Northeast.

Business executives attribute their optimism and initiatives there to the region's reliable supplies of power, raw materials and cheap labor and the business opportunities in the Chinese market.

"We want to be able to take advantage of the strong market when the crisis is behind us," said Kirby Jefferson, general manager of Intel's Fab 68.

Fab 68, in Dalian, a coastal boomtown of northeast China's Liaoning Province, is Intel's first wafer fabrication plant (FB) in Asia. It broke ground in 2007 and is due to be in operational in 2010.

In spite of the tough market conditions, Jefferson said the global chip giant had no plans to delay the operation of the US$2.5-billion facility.

"Business will come back, business will get strong again. It's important that Intel has a very strong presence with manufacturing in China," Jefferson said.

Intel has made it clear that it wanted to produce computer chips locally to cut costs as China has emerged as a major consumer of the products.

China, also a huge market for many other products, has helped a number of foreign businesses to partially offset trouble in other major markets amid the global recession.

In addition, China would be the first major economy to recover from the global financial crisis with the help of the 4-trillion-yuan (US$585-billion) stimulus package, economists estimated.

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