Dutch economy minister Vincent Karremans said he believed chips from Nexperia would reach customers in Europe and elsewhere in the coming days, amid an ongoing clash with China over the company’s seizure by the Dutch government on 30 September.
Karremans said the Netherlands had been informed by China and the US that their trade deal last week would allow Nexperia shipments from China to resume, which he said was also consistent with information provided to the European Commission by China’s ministry of commerce.
Automakers have experienced disruption due to shortages of the chips, whose export from Nexperia’s Chinese subsidiary were restricted by the Chinese government last month.
Shortages
The chips are also widely used in industrial, computing, mobile and consumer devices.
Automakers began applying to receive chips this week after the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said it would consider approvals on a case-by-case basis.
Nexperia said this week that it suspended shipments of wafers from its European production facilities to China, where most are packaged and turned into finished products, because Nexperia China had stopped making payments.
It said it could not guarantee the quality or authenticity of its chips delivered from China after 13 October as the Chinese subsidiary had begun ignoring instructions from the Dutch head office, leading to “missing transparency and oversight over the manufacturing processes”.
Internal row
It said the founder of Nexperia parent Wingtech, Zhang Xuezheng, had been ousted as Nexperia’s chief executive on 7 October by an Amsterdam court following a petition from management.
Nexperia China has begun acting as an independent company, saying it was sourcing wafers from companies other than Nexperia’s head office, and resuming domestic shipments to Chinese customers while taking payment in Chinese yuan.
In taking control of Nexperia, the Dutch government said it suspected Wingtech would move the company’s chip production entirely to China, and also cited a US threat to place Nexperia on a trade blacklist if Zhang were not removed as chief executive.
