Although Taiwan is still the world’s largest CD-R disc manufacturing hub, new factors like the EU anti-dumping tariff and higher cargo fees have made overseas production sites more and more attractive. Domestic CD-R capacity should stay above overseas capacity in 2002, but by 2003 a major percentage might be relocated to other countries.
Recent rumors that CMC Magnetics plans to close its Taiwan CD-R disc production lines have been denied by the company. However, it does not plan to increase domestic capacity any more.
In the past, both CMC and Ritek avoided the topic of overseas expansion, but now that market conditions have changed they have revealed a little more. Bob Wong, chairman of CMC Magnetics, said they have already established production sites in the UK, Ireland, the US, Mexico and Hong Kong. Chwei-jing Yeh, CEO of Ritek, said they are currently expanding at facilities in Europe to achieve a monthly capacity of 20 million CD-R discs.
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