Taiwan-based technology manufacturing group Hon Hai Precision will become the general agent for Apple's products on the Chinese mainland and the company will start its large-scale deployment in the mainland channels market later this year.

To broaden sources of income and reduce expenditure, Taiwan-based technology manufacturing group Hon Hai Precision Industry Company is planning to implement large-scale employee relocations to third-tier Chinese mainland cities that can offer preferential tax policies in addition to reducing its operating budget for 2009 by 20%.

According to Terry Guo, chairman of the Taiwan-based Hon Hai Precision Industry Company, the technology manufacturing group will implement a global staff cut plan and about 3-5% of its employees will lose their jobs.

Flextronics, one of the world's leading electronics manufacturing services providers, will cut 30% of the jobs in its Beijing office in addition to closing its research and development department in Beijing.

According to Chen Weiliang, president of Foxconn International, Foxconn will move its factories from Shenzhen to northern Chinese provinces such as Hebei and Shanxi where the average salary is more than 60% lower than that of Shenzhen, to save costs.

Zhang Zhengkui, special consultant to Terry Kuo, president of Taiwan based Foxconn, has donated RMB60 million to Sichuan earthquake victims on behalf of Terry Kuo, Foxconn Group and the company's employees. This is the largest sum of donation that Sichuan has received from a Taiwanese company.

Xu Mingtian, an economics author and researcher from Peking University, has written a book called "Terry Kuo and Foxconn" to help reverse the public's negative perception of Taiwan's Foxconn and its CEO Terry Kuo following allegations of poor corporate responsibility in 2006.

Representatives from Foxconn, one of the largest original equipment manufactures within the electronics industry, said at the Innovative National Construction and Intellectual Property Symposium that 90% of China's new patents are useless and should be canceled.

While shifting from a manufacturer to a technology provider, Foxconn is making Shenzhen its global planning headquarters and a center for global manufacturing.