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Foxconn and TSMC, two Taiwanese giants in the international technology supply chain, have agreed to buy 10 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine for the island to avoid a deadlock between Taipei and Beijing. The two companies will pay up to $ 35 per dose of the BioNTech vaccine and donate it to the government; each company has pledged to spend $ 175 million.
BioNTech is partnering with Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Co. to distribute its mRNA-based vaccine, which was co-developed with Pfizer, in China. Taiwan says the Chinese government blocked an attempt to secure a vaccine supply from BioNTech, and then turned down an offer of vaccine donations from the mainland. With the new deal, however, BioNTech and Fosun are allowed to deal with private companies rather than the Taiwanese government, which Beijing considers illegitimate.
“Since we offered the vaccine donation and started negotiating the purchase, there has been no guidance or interference from Beijing regarding the acquisition,” Foxconn founder Terry Gou wrote on Facebook in remarks translated by Nikkei. “We appreciate that the negotiation has been allowed to proceed as a commercial matter.”
Foxconn is a huge electronics maker under contract to major customers such as HP, Dell, and Lenovo, and is best known for being the largest iPhone assembler. TSMC is the world’s largest semiconductor foundry, manufacturing chips to specifications from AMD, Apple and Nvidia; it is responsible for the majority of smartphone SoCs around the world. Most of Foxconn’s manufacturing takes place in China and other countries, but TSMC’s main operating base is in the Hsinchu area of Taiwan.
Taiwan has been widely praised for its response to the pandemic, but is currently experiencing an epidemic that has killed more than 700 people and accelerated demand for vaccines. Last week, the government said just over 14% of the population, or about 3.3 million people, had received a single shot of the vaccine.
TSMC and Foxconn say the newly secured BioNTech doses will be shipped from its factories in Germany and are expected to start arriving in Taiwan from the end of September.
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