China is likely to import at least US$300 billion worth of semiconductors for the third year running, an industry association official said, in a sign of continuing reliance on foreign know-how despite efforts to gain local capability.
"China is the world's largest importer of chips," Wei Shaojun, vice-chairman of the China Semiconductor Industry Association, told the World Semiconductor Conference on Wednesday."After 2013 our chip imports exceeded US$200 billion. In 2018 it exceeded US$300 billion and was still at US$300 billion in 2019.
China has been spending billions of dollars in an effort to try to speed up improvements to its domestic chip industry, an campaign which faces fresh urgency as Washington puts fresh pressure on Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd.