According to the reports, after renewing contract negotiations failed, Wisconsin rejected Apple’s contract manufacturer Foxconn’s application for tax subsidies in October this year because Foxconn failed to build in accordance with the contract signed with the state government, LCD factory. In response, Foxconn said that it has never explicitly promised to build an LCD factory.
Foxconn’s project in Wisconsin has experienced many twists and turns. Since its announcement in 2017, the company’s plans to build an LCD factory in Wisconsin have been changing.
In 2017, Foxconn announced that it would build a 20 million square foot (approximately 1.8581 million square meters) park in Wisconsin, which is the largest greenfield investment in the history of the United States by a foreign company. According to the initial plan, the company will be eligible for approximately US$3 billion in tax subsidies.
At that time, the company promised that it would eventually create 13,000 jobs in Wisconsin. However, earlier last year, the company stated that it had slowed down the pace of hiring. In July 2019, Foxconn stated that its Wisconsin factory will start production in May 2020 and will only provide 1,500 jobs by then, instead of the 13,000 previously promised.
In April last year, the Governor of Wisconsin, Tony Evers, stated that he hoped to renegotiate the state contract with Foxconn because Foxconn could not fulfill its original promise of creating 13,000 jobs in the state.
In October of this year, foreign media obtained documents showing that the renewed contract negotiations between the two parties failed. WEDC, which is responsible for supervising the performance of the contract, rejected Foxconn’s tax subsidy application on the grounds that Foxconn did not perform the contract content for the construction of the 10.5 generation LCD factory.
Foxconn stated in the latest filing that the company has never made a clear commitment to build an LCD factory. Moreover, the company claims that it has a “consensus” with WEDC that it will establish a more vague definition in Wisconsin, a transformative and sustainable high-tech manufacturing and technology ecosystem, which will bring long-term investment. And employment opportunities.
However, Foxconn did express its willingness to modify the contract to gain greater flexibility in construction projects in exchange for lower subsidies. At the same time, WEDC is also open to modifying the contract to reflect Foxconn’s current plans.
Founded in 1974, Foxconn is a high-tech group specializing in the production of 3C products and semiconductor equipment (the world’s largest foundry manufacturer), as well as a professional manufacturer of electronics. The company is a major iPhone assembler and a component supplier to companies such as Apple.
(Source)
