The totalitarian regime in Peking shows no signs of relaxing its repressive grip voluntarily, but companies feel that they cannot afford to stay out of such a potentially enormous market, and Intel Corp is to invest $30m to build the first phase of a world-class Flash memory and microcontroller assembly and test plant in China’s largest city, Shanghai. The Chinese bought about 1m computers in 1994, almost all of them using 80386, 80486 or Pentium chips, and the market is growing at 30% to 60% a year. The wholly-owned plant is to open in 1997 with 800 to 900 employees. In return for the investement, Shanghai officials will agree to make a preferential recommendation that Pentium-based desktop computers be used in a wide range of projects where the city ha s influence.
