LONDON (Kyodo) NEC Electronics Corp. said Tuesday it will shut down its semiconductor plant in Meath, Ireland, at the end of September due to high operating costs.
"The international semiconductor market in which we operate is extremely competitive," said Hideto Goto, executive vice president in charge of manufacturing at NEC. "We could not justify the high cost of keeping it open."
The major semiconductor maker plans to transfer the Irish plant's workload to other NEC facilities in China, Malaysia and Singapore, where wage levels are much lower than in Ireland, the Associated Press reported.
NEC, which forecasts group operating losses for fiscal 2005, has been strengthening cost-cutting measures to improve its financial performance, and the closure of the Irish plant comes under this heading, it said.
The plant, which went onstream in 1976, was one of the first ventures by overseas companies supported by Ireland's Industrial Development Agency.