Apple has asked suppliers to ensure that shipments from Taiwan to China strictly comply with Chinese customs regulations after a recent visit by senior U.S. lawmaker Nancy Pelosi to Taipei stoked fears of rising trade barriers, reports Nikkei Asia.
The article says that the tech giant has told suppliers that China has started strictly enforcing a long-standing rule that Taiwanese-made parts and components must be labeled as being made either in “Taiwan, China” or “Chinese Taipei.”
Nikkei Asia says Apple is urging suppliers to treat the matter with urgency to avoid possible disruptions caused by goods and components being held for scrutiny. The tech giant has been looking for ways to reduce its reliance on Chinese companies that manufacture its products.
On April 21 analyst Ming-Chi said this in a tweet: Apple’s new product introduction (NPI) sites are almost in China. It was the first time for Apple to evaluate building NPI sites in non-China seriously when the COVID-19 outbreak first occurred about two years ago, but internally it only proceeded to the proposal stage. However, after the recent lockdowns in China, to diversify supply chain management risks, building NPI sites in non-China is no longer a proposal but an action plan.
Half of Apple’s 200 top suppliers — including Pegatron, Compal Electronics — have facilities in and around Shanghai, where COVID-related lockdowns and traffic restrictions “are disrupting a wide swathe of business activities,” according to a Nikkei Asia analysis yesterday.
More than 70 companies own manufacturing plants in the Jiangsu Province that directly supply the U.S. tech giant, according to an analysis of Apple’s latest available Supplier List. The majority of these are in Kunshan and Suzhou, the two cities near Shanghai. A further 30 or so Apple suppliers have facilities in Shanghai itself, the latest epicenter of the COVID-19 surge in China.
