Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, who along with Brian
Deese, director of the National Economic Council, met on Thursday with
semiconductor industry participants, told Reuters that strong action was needed
to address the chip shortage.
"It's time to get more aggressive," she said.
"The situation is not getting better, in some ways it is getting
worse."
Participants in Thursday's meeting, which followed meetings
in April and May, included Detroit's Big Three automakers, plus Apple, Daimler,
BMW, GlobalFoundries, Micron, Microsoft, Samsung, TSMC, Intel, and Ampere
Computing.
The White House said the administration "reaffirmed
that industry needs to be in the lead in resolving the supply chain bottlenecks
that are occurring due to the global chip shortage."
Raimondo said a voluntary request Thursday for information
within 45 days on the chips crisis is about boosting supply chain transparency
and to "get more granular into the bottlenecks and then ultimately predict
challenges before they happen."
She warned that if companies did not answer the voluntary
request "then we have other tools in our tool box that require them to
give us data. I hope we don't get there. But if we have to we will."
Automakers from General Motors to Toyota Motor to Chrysler
parent Stellantis NV have slashed output and sales forecasts due to scarce chip
supplies, made worse by a COVID-19 resurgence in key Asian semiconductor
production hubs.
Stellantis Chief Executive Carlos Tavares, who participated
in the White House virtual meeting, said the automaker will cooperate with the
information request, but added in a statement that "broad participation
from the entire semiconductor supply chain will be critical for these efforts
to be successful."
Some attendees told Reuters privately they were concerned
the transparency measures could require disclosing pricing information that
many companies regard as corporate secrets.
Raimondo also delivered the message to the companies
privately that the government would mandate information sharing if necessary.
The White House also said several US agencies would manage a
new early alert system "to proactively manage potential semiconductor
supply chain disruptions linked to public health developments in key trading
partners."
Participants were concerned about how to disclose such information while still complying with reporting requirements of publicly traded companies, a participant said. © Reuters
0 comments:
Post a Comment