Mayor Kate Gallego will travel to South Korea, Japan and Taiwan today to meet with companies interested in the Valley’s burgeoning semiconductor supply chain and advocate for direct flights between Phoenix and Asia.
Gallego will visit Suwon, South Korea, Himeji, Japan with Deputy Mayor Yasamin Ansari, and Taipei, Taiwan with City Councilman Anne O’Brien. City officials from the Bureau of Economic Development and the nonprofit Phoenix Sister Cities will also participate.
“Our visit will serve to expand Phoenix’s global presence, foster meaningful partnerships with cities around the world, and continue our strong efforts to deliver a vital economic driver for our home country. ,” Gallego said in a statement.
Ansari and O’Brien represent the northernmost and southernmost points of Phoenix, as well as areas that the city is eyeing as economic development hubs for the Valley’s budding semiconductor industry.
Gallego’s two-week trip will be his first return to Taiwan since 2019, when he pitched Phoenix as a suitable location for a future Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company facility. The company has since chosen North Phoenix as the location for its new microchip fab. Later, TSMC announced that it would build a second facility in O’Brien’s District 1. The total investment is US$40 billion.
The advanced technology manufacturing company is expected to create 10,000 jobs, including 4,500 directly from TSMC, and produce 600,000 semiconductor wafers annually, generating about $10 billion in revenue, according to the company. there is The industry is considered critical to the advancement of technology in the United States. Semiconductor chips power computers, smartphones and medical devices.of The Biden administration announced They will strengthen national security and the economy.
TSMC’s decision to base itself in Phoenix brought the valley national prominence, and in December, high-profile leaders such as President Joe Biden and Apple CEO Tim Cook announced the company’s second Micro. We visited the construction site to celebrate the announcement of the chip manufacturing plant.
Ansari’s District 7, on the other side of the city where TSMC is based, also sees significant commercial and residential growth. This attraction is largely facilitated by the Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway, which opened in 2019 and serves as an additional connection between the West and East Valleys.
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City officials are planning a technology corridor in the area, calling it an economic developer’s dream. They believe the proximity to California ports via Interstate 10 will further accelerate development. Regional transportation planners plan to extend the area into the West Valley and beyond with State Route 30, planned as a relief highway to State Route 10, which runs several miles south of the interstate and parallel to it. I have plans to connect.
A spokesperson for Ansari City said the deputy mayor had “how Korean and Japanese sister cities built a walkable city with the world’s most acclaimed public transportation system” and that those solutions came to Phoenix. He said he was particularly excited to see how it could be applied.
City Councilman Kesha Hodge Washington, elected in March, represents another southern district of Phoenix and lives near the freeway in Lavine. Hodge Washington is not heading to Asia, but through his campaign he has repeatedly emphasized the message of promoting economic development, and as long as elected leaders hold the people in their hands, future commercial opportunities will lie with them. He said it would provide potential for economic upswing.
Hodge Washington said she wants interested people to come to her area, the 8th District, to offer high-paying jobs.
“A subsidized business related to semiconductors would be good,” said Hodge Washington. “There are a lot of other companies that might join as well. I am not sticking to any particular industry.”
Reporter Taylor Seeley covers Phoenix City Hall in the Arizona Republic. Contact her at tseely@arizonarepublic.com, call 480-476-6116, or thread. @taylor.azc.
