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Van Hool To End City Bus Production in Belgium

GLOBAL REPORT
Chris Fisher
Chris Fisher

Van Hool has announced its exit from the City Bus business and focus on Hydrogen fuel cell coaches which appears to have been a serious miscalculation.  As the market transitions away from internal combustion engine buses toward battery electric buses, Van Hool has been left behind.

Van Hool recently lost a bid for 300 electric city buses to BYD which assembles their buses in Hungary at a lower cost than Van Hool could manufacture these in Belgium.  It was reported that the BYD bid was approximately 20% less than the Van Hool bid. This along with other issues will result in Van Hool ending most if not all of their bus and coach operations in Belgium and transfer the bus and coach making activities to their assembly plant in Macedonia. 

However, Van Hool will need a significant cash infusion in a short period of time to cover the cost of their existing debt and the coming redundancy payments in order to stave off insolvency.

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South Korea Plans World’s Largest Semiconductor Manufacturing Base

SOUTH KOREA REPORT
Akihiro Komuro
Akihiro Komuro

The South Korean government announced a plan for a semiconductor industrial park in which Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix will invest a total of 622 trillion won (approx. $470 Billion). With Japan and Taiwan aggressively investing in the semiconductor industry, the government aims to compete with them by establishing the world’s largest base and stabilizing the supply of semiconductors to Korea.

According to the plan announced by the government, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix plan to invest 500 trillion won and 122 trillion won, respectively, by 2047. In addition to the existing 21 factories, 13 new semiconductor factories and 3 research facilities will be built. The semiconductor industrial park, which stretches from Pyeongtaek to Yongming, is expected to become the world’s largest manufacturing base with a monthly production capacity of 7.7 million wafers by 2030.

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