On Monday, in a statement Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC) stated, it will prioritize production of auto chips if it is able to further boost production, said Taiwan’s Economics Ministry after Minister Wang Mei-hua spoke to senior company executives.

On Sunday, TSMC had told the ministry that they will “optimise” the production process of chips to make it more efficient and prioritise auto chip production if it is able to further boost production capacity.

In a statement, TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker said, while the current production capacity is full, but “if production can be increased by optimising production capacity, it will cooperate with the government to regard automotive chips as a primary application”.

“Other than continuously maximising utilisation of our existing capacity, Dr. Wei also confirmed in our investors’ conference that we are working with customers closely and moving some of their mature nodes to more advanced nodes, where we have better capacity to support them,” said the company.

In a letter, German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier requested Wang to persuade its manufacturers to help ease a shortage of semiconductor chips in the auto sector which is hampering its fledgling economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Taiwan’s Economics Ministry said it would wait until it had received the letter before deciding on whether to contact TSMC again.