“This development poses major challenges for our economy. It is a reality – and we cannot simply change it. This makes it all the more important to tackle it decisively and intelligently. We must therefore strengthen our resilience, especially with regard to our supply chains. We must do everything we can to secure jobs in Europe, Germany and Saxony. We must strengthen innovation in order to be an important part of global value chains ourselves,” says Minister of Economic Affairs Dirk Panter.
The current chip crisis and the associated impact on the automotive industry are an alarming signal of how dependent Europe still is on key future technologies.
Following a dispute with the Dutch government, China imposed an export ban on products made by Nexperia. This measure brought production at car manufacturers such as VW to a considerable standstill. To put this into perspective: every car currently produced contains up to 500 components from Nexperia. The affected companies in Saxony bear no responsibility for this conflict and have no influence on its course.
It is still unclear how many supply chains are affected by the latest conflict. VW has at least issued a partial warning in the last few days. However, the situation is serious, as parts of the European automotive industry actually have completely different concerns.
“The following still applies: the German automotive industry must become competitive again – here in Germany. At the same time, we must ensure that we reduce our dependencies in the supply chains. This is also an important part of greater resilience. We need alternative plans in Europe that we can also rely on in times of need. Of course, free trade in the world remains the best prerequisite for a prosperous global economy. But if free trade falls victim to the power struggle of economic superpowers, then we must be prepared with alternative plans,” said Panter.
Saxony has the expertise to be a reliable partner for greater resilience like no other microelectronics location in Europe. Local manufacturers are already supplying the automotive industry. But even they cannot replace Nexperia’s now missing deliveries overnight.
Panter: “Saxony’s semiconductor industry can help prevent damage – also because no other state in Germany has promoted science and industry in this sector as consistently as Saxony. That is why I clearly addressed the Federal Chancellor during his visit to the cabinet the day before yesterday. We are a medium-sized Free State in the Federal Republic of Germany and in Europe. But it all depends on us: with the fifth largest microelectronics cluster in the world, we are the only location in Europe to play reliably in the Champions League of microelectronics. We simply don’t have the time for the small-scale envy debates with the southern German federal states regarding the co-financing of IPCEI and Chips Act projects – because we want to move forward – for Saxony, for Germany and for Europe!”
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Further links
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