China authorizes Nexperia to resume chip exports

The Chinese government has authorized semiconductor supplier Nexperia to resume exports of some of its chips after the shortage caused by the embargo began to cause stoppages at plants in North America.

The announcement came a few hours after the summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald J. Trump in South Korea, where, according to the Wall Street Journal, the leaders discussed the issue and agreed on a framework to stabilize global supply chains.

The Chinese Ministry of Commerce called on companies affected by the embargo to come forward to discuss each case individually and determine whether it warrants an exception. However, the authorities did not specify when these exceptions would take effect.

In 2019, the Chinese company Wingtech Technology took control of Nexperia, headquartered in the Netherlands.

Although the intellectual property and its main production centers remain in Europe, the company sends the chip wafers to plants in China where they are validated, packaged, and distributed worldwide.

In early October, China ordered a suspension of exports after the Dutch government intervened in the company, citing national security reasons, and forced it to halt shipments of wafers to Asia.

For its part, Nexperia said it had sufficient inventory to resume deliveries to its customers in both the automotive and consumer electronics sectors.

The company also revealed that it had several “multiple contingency plans in place” to source chip wafers from alternative sources and that it expected to normalize its orders before the end of the year.