Foreign sale of Toshiba’s memory biz to be scrutinized

March 24, 2017

TOKYO- The Japanese government plans to scrutinize any proposal by a foreign company to acquire Toshiba Corp.’s prized memory chip business under the foreign exchange and foreign trade law, industry minister Hiroshige Seko said Friday.

“If we receive advance notice (of such acquisition) based on the foreign exchange law, we’ll conduct a strict scrutiny from the viewpoint of national security,” Seko said at a news conference.

Seko said Toshiba’s semiconductor business has high global competitiveness and is very important in light of the need to maintain jobs.

The business is also expected to have increasing importance in term of information security, he also said.

The government wants Toshiba to consider these issues carefully when it decides whether the memory chip business should be sold to a non-Japanese buyer, Seko said.

Toshiba, a financially strapped electronics and machinery giant, is looking at the sale of the memory chip business to deal with massive losses in its overseas nuclear operations. Jiji Press