“If we don’t react, European industry will be devoured. » In the circles of Brussels as in the surroundings of French, German or Italian factories, the same concern arises regarding the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) adopted by the United States. That is, an endowment of 370 billion dollars (352 billion euros) of subsidies and tax credits reserved for American green industries, and which will significantly increase their competitiveness. “It’s about protectionismsummarizes Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for the Internal Market, in an interview with Sunday newspaper of 4 December. The risk is to attract parts of our industry to the United States, or even strategic investments that companies from third countries were planning to make in Europe. »
A prospect all the more worrying given that for five years the Old Continent has already been far ahead of the United States – and even more than Asia – in terms of industrial investments. Published on Monday 12 December by research firm Trendeo, the Institute of Reindustrialisation, McKinsey and engineering group Fives, the ‘Global Industrial Investment Barometer 2022’ reveals a battery of indicators which confirm this dizzying observation. “US proactivity in industrial matters has had very clear effects: the US share of global investments has increased from 20% to 30% between 2019 and 2022”, explains David Cousquer, of Trendeo. That of Europe has remained stable, around 13%, while that of Asia has dropped a bit during the Covid-19 but remains by far at the top of the podium, with just over 50%.
“This European lag is confirmed when we look at the details of big tech sectors”, adds Gwenaël Guillemot, director of the Institute for Reindustrialization – an association created by two engineering schools and two professional federations. Example: Between 2016 and 2022, Europe captured just 7% of global investment in semiconductors, or $59 billion (€56 billion). North America received 30% ($248 billion) and Asia received 63% ($533 billion).
The barometer also reveals a ranking of the sums invested by the major semiconductor companies in the same period: first are the South Koreans of SK Inc. (138 billion dollars), followed by the Americans of Intel (135 billion) and the Taiwanese of TSMC (111 billion) . No European appears in the top ten.
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