Japan's prime minister to meet with top chip firms

TOKYO (Reuters) -Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida plans to meet with top executives from global semiconductor companies as early as on Thursday to strengthen multilateral cooperation, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said.

"The resilience of the semiconductor supply chain cannot be achieved by a single country, and it is extremely important to work together with like-minded countries and regions," Matsuno told a regular news conference on Wednesday.

The meeting would occur at a time when the United States is increasingly urging allies to work together to counter China's chips and advanced technology development.

Ahead of Matsuno's comment, two people involved in planning the meeting had told Reuters that Kishida will meet with executives from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC) and six other chip firms to seek active investment in Japan and tighter cooperation with Japanese companies.

Executives from Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, Intel Corp, Micron Technology Inc, Applied Materials Inc, International Business Machines Corp and IMEC will also take part, the people said.

Japan is striving to reinvigorate its chip sector, whose global market share has fallen to about 10% from around 50% in the late 1980s.

TSMC, the world's largest contract chip manufacturer, is building a major factory in western Japan. Samsung is considering setting up a chip packaging test line in the country, five people familiar with the matter said in March.

Also, Intel is looking into opening up a research and development facility in Japan, the Yomiuri Shimbun daily reported on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Yoshifumi Takemoto, Maki Shiraki and Satoshi Sugiyama; Writing by Mariko Katsumura and Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Neil Fullick)