Fair Friend Forms JV in Taichung with Three Japanese Firms

Taipei, March 9, 2012 (CENS)--Fair Friend Group, the largest manufacturer of CNC (computerized numerically controlled) machine tools in Taiwan and China, recently formed with three Japanese firms, including Waia, Cincom and Marubeni, a joint-venture company in Taiwan named Waida Fair Friend Machinery.

Fair Friend says Waida Fair Friend, capitalized at NT$100 million Japanese yen or NT$36.44 million, is headquartered in the Taichung Industrial Park, central Taiwan, and will raise capital according to growth in the years to come.

The three Japanese firms hold 55% of the JV with the remaining 45% held by Fair Friend, whose combined annual sales total NT$1 trillion. This is the largest joint-venture between Japanese and Taiwanese firms since the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) and the Ministry of Economic Affairs began encouraging foreign firms to invest in Taiwan a few years ago.

As part of the joint-venture, Fair Friend plans to set up a new plant in the Taichung Precision Machinery Park to develop high-precision wafer-grinding machines and tool grinders, with the plant to jointly procure with the joint-venture key components and parts.

Fair Friend Group chairman Jimmy Chu says many Japanese machine-tool firms have expressed willingness to set up production facilities in Taiwan under the cross-Taiwan Strait ECFA (economic cooperation framework agreement).