The construction work for Samsung’s $7-billion project in Xi’an is in full swing, and it is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year, according to local officials.
The project’s most important flash memory plant will start trial production in February, they said.
An expressway established for the project will also be open to the public within six months.
The 5.6-kilometer four-lane highway will have a speed limit of 100 km per hour.
So far, foundations for the main building and subsidiaries of the project have been finished.
Workers are now busy establishing 15 types of supporting facilities, such as a sewage treatment factory, a heating center, as well as power and water infrastructure.
The South Korean electronics giant is very cautious about safety issues during construction, according to the company.
A project manager said that they organize meetings and patrols every day to highlight security.
They have also set up a training center for new workers where they can watch related videos and read books.
It also has dozens of simulated construction scenes that allow workers to practice their skills, including welding, scaffolding and high-altitude operations.
They will receive an early warning for any action that may put an employee in some kind of danger, such as falling or receiving electric shocks, the manager said.
As the largest foreign investment in China’s western areas, Samsung’s project focuses on the production of the world’s most advanced 10-nanometer high-end flash memory chips.
To prevent the exposure of this state-of-the-art chip technology, Samsung set up production bases only in two foreign cities. One was built in 1996 in the U.S. city of Austin, and another is in Xi’an.
The choice of China to house the high-tech project was met with dissent in South Korea from the media and other sources, a Samsung senior manager said.
But, the company’s senior executives said the project should be located in a region with the most potential, he noted.
Because China is implementing the western development strategy and stimulating domestic demand, the markets there will be huge, he added.
Samsung has predicted that China will account for more than half of the global market share in the semiconductor industry by 2015.
Most of the chip buyers, especially the PC manufacturers, have moved their production lines there.
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