Dutch economy minister pushes for European chip industry coalition

ROME (Reuters) - The Dutch economy minister said on Thursday he wants to form a European Union "coalition of the willing" to strengthen their domestic computer chip industries and remain competitive with the U.S. and China.

On the sidelines of a G7 meeting of industry ministers in Rome, Dirk Beljaarts said that while the Netherlands is home to leading chip tool maker ASML, it wants to "facilitate other (EU) countries having several plants in production, assembly, and packaging."

"To have a stronger EU, between the other global players, to get leverage, it's important to work together," Beljaarts said.

The Netherlands is willing to take a leading role, he said, noting that he has been cooperating with his Italian counterpart Adolfo Urso on the idea.

Although the Netherlands has the world's 18th largest economy and is not a G7 member, Beljaarts was invited to the meeting on technology policy.

The EU lost its most visible chip industry champion last month with the abrupt departure of former EU Commission industry chief Thierry Breton, architect of the EU's Chips Act. The act, rolled out in April 2023, has been billed as a 43 billion euro ($46.96 billion) subsidy plan to boost Europe's share of the global chip market to 20% by 2030.

Beljaarts met separately in Rome with U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, whose office is expected to roll out a new round of restrictions on exports of advanced semiconductor equipment to China this year, affecting ASML.

Beljaarts said that was his first meeting with Raimondo and they discussed areas of possible cooperation, not export restrictions.

($1 = 0.9157 euros)

(Reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Richard Chang)

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