Taipei, 18 April 2023 (MIA) – Taiwanese company Yageo will officially invest in North Macedonia. The agreement for an investment worth EUR 205 million, set to create 4.000 new jobs, was signed Tuesday in Taipei by Technological Industrial Development Zones (TIDZ) Director Jovan Despotovski and the management of Yageo. Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski joined the signing ceremony via video.

According to MIA’s Taipei reporter, Yageo will produce spare parts and components for the automotive industry and green energy. The production plants will be based in TIDZ Skopje 1 and TIDZ Shtip. The construction of the first plant will begin in July 2023, in TIDZ Skopje 1.

The negotiations for the investment lasted almost a year, and North Macedonia was chosen as the best option in the race with other countries from the region and beyond.

“We have great experience with North Macedonia. Still, two aspects were crucial for our decision to invest: we saw that the country is stable, with a qualified workforce, and the Government was also fully committed and positively positioned towards us. This was perhaps crucial,” stressed David Wang, the CEO of Yageo.

Andreas Meier, the head of the operative segment, said that the country’s biggest greenfield investment since its independence won’t only mean investing in money, business and profit, but also investing in human capital.

“Our priorities include the introduction of new technology and boosting staff, enabling employees to acquire new skills and improve,” underlined Meier.

According to TIDZ Director Despotovski, the signing of the agreement is proof that with knowledge, desire and patience, the country can achieve great results.

“The process was not easy at all. Many countries were competing, including Croatia and Serbia. But we succeeded in the race, and we are here today, signing an agreement. With this investment, we are joining the map of countries that provide vital components for producers like Tesla and Apple,” Despotovski said.

The signing ceremony was held at Yageo’s headquarters in Taipei. Prime Minister Kovachevski welcomed the investment via video.

“This is the country’s biggest greenfield investment since its independence, worth EUR 205 million and resulting in the creation of 3.900 new jobs. Yageo is a leading multinational company for the production of electronic components, which has a strong global presence and production capacities in Asia, Europe, and America with 40.000 employees worldwide. The electronic components produced by Yageo are used in the aircraft and automotive industry, 5G and telecommunications, medicine, energy management, green energy,” said Kovachevski.

With the new concept of encouraging investments we’ve managed, he added, to place our country high on the map of investment destinations with the ability to provide the capacity and conditions for high-quality investments.

“The figures indicate how efficient the new concept of investments and providing support for TIDZ investments is. In the last two years we’ve signed agreements of over EUR 650 million, which is more than half of the total value of investments in the country in the past 10 years. With this investment, we are raising this figure to over EUR 850 million,” said the PM.

The delegation led by Despotovski will visit Yageo’s plant in Kaohsiung on Wednesday.