China’s capital of cool proved a natural venue for the trade show which involved companies working in the printed circuit board industry, as the country is likely to have a major impact on the recovering global semiconductor market.

Foreign semiconductor manufacturers are setting up operations in China en masse, following the lead of many of their customers who have moved their manufacturing bases to the country for the production of such items as automobiles, telephones, televisions and DVDs among others.

While some analysts are predicting growth of plus 20 per cent for the industry this year, others are putting the mark, conservatively, in low double-digit figures. Despite the booming growth in China’s manufacturing sector, China-made semiconductors still have a long way to go to reach the levels of their foreign counterparts. Even the country’s biggest manufacturers primarily use imported semiconductors from places such as Taiwan, the world’s third largest manufacturer of chips.

Paul Lanzetta is someone who undoubtedly plays a lot of golf in Taiwan as the 9.6 handicap topped the 101-man field to win low gross honours at the TPCA Spring Golf Tournament. The vice-president of MacDermid Chemical Taiwan improved on his opening nine 42 to come home with a 39 for a nine-over-par 81. Along the way he also captured one of two nearest-the-pin prizes with Wu Shengzhong in addition to one of the four long drive prizes.

The other long drive winners were You Zhenhui, Liu Kewei and Mr Duhua.

Feng Xing Yun, a 15.6 handicap from Taiwan, captured the low net honour when he shot a gross 89 for a net 73.4 under cloudy and cool conditions.

The tournament was hosted by the TPCA who invited five different groups to participate. Among them were PCB South China, PCB East China, PCB Golf Association, PCB Golf Holiday Group and South PCB Group.