Does Britain’s semiconductor industry risk being left behind? – BBC Newsnight

A legal battle is raging over the future of a factory in Newport, Wales, which mass produces technological components called semiconductors.

The Government has ordered its Dutch owners, Nexperia, to sell it under national security laws because they’re owned, in turn, by a Chinese company.

The Foreign Secretary’s said that it’s not in the UK’s interests to pull the shutters down on the relationship with China. But the decision could mean the factory’s closure, at the cost of some 500 high paying jobs.

Meanwhile the Government has this week again postponed the publication of its long-promised and long awaited national semiconductor strategy.

That comes as the EU and the US are pushing ahead with their own subsidy schemes for this technology which will likely shape our everyday lives and economic fortunes in the decades to come. Is the UK at risk of being left behind? Newsnight’s Economics Editor Ben Chu reports.

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