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NEWS DIGEST
World Reports
The dozen happiest countries; a data center JV in London; AstraZeneca R&D in Beijing; Hitachi Energy in Finland; Maruti Suzuki in Gujarat, India; Kingspan Group in Ukraine.
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Renderings courtesy of MIFC
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In May, Saudi Arabia’s MBS Global Investments and the Maldives Government announced their intent to create the US$8.8 billion Maldives International Financial Centre (MIFC), “a wholly sustainable, Financial Freezone in Malé, Maldives, designed for and created to attract global financial institutions, fintech pioneers and global digital Nomads.”
Allowing the Maldives to diversify beyond tourism, said the organizations, the center, expected to be complete in 2030, “will attract the future of finance and position Malé as the premier global business and financial hub in the Indian Ocean through an integrated, mixed-use urban district. MIFC will offer no corporate tax, tax-free inheritance, ownership as per the constitution of the Maldives, and privacy. Combined with no residency requirements, it’s set to attract digital nomads, entrepreneurs and wealth creators seeking freedom without borders.”
Expected to be complete by 203, MIFC will encompass 780,000 sq. m (nearly 8.4 million sq. ft.) where more than 6,500 people are projected to reside, in addition to “an expected daily footfall of 35,000.”
Site Selection in January highlighted similarly ambitious international financial center plans afoot in Malaysia.
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Renderings courtesy of MIFC
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NHanced Semiconductors is investing in three facilities in Odon and Bloomington, Indiana.
Rendering courtesy of NHanced
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The 2025 SMTA Symposium on Counterfeit Parts & Materials taking place in College Park, Maryland, this week will feature a keynote address by NHanced Semiconductors Vice President Dr. Charles Woychik about “the critical role of advanced packaging technologies needed to build a more resilient and advanced Outsourced Assembly and Test (OSAT) sector in the U.S.” What’s an OSAT? It stands for Outsourced Assembly and Test operations, and NHanced, which operates what it calls “the world’s first pure-play advanced packaging foundry,” is itself an OSAT. This March 2025 explainer from Wevolver describes why such operations — whose value is projected to significantly rise in the coming decade — are so crucial to the semiconductor supply chain.
In March 2024, Site Selection published Ron Starner’s interview with NHanced Founder, Owner, President and CEO Bob Patti. That same issue examined the potential for CHIPs Act-supported OSAT expansion in Panama and other Central America countries. This May 2024 Investment Profile highlighted the growth of OSAT company Amkor in Portugal as well as other semiconductor ecosystem investments. That’s the same Amkor setting up OSAT operations in the Greater Phoenix community of Peoria. And, as reported three months ago in Site Selection, Costa Rica — a country known for its OSAT operations for such giants as Intel — in March 2024 announced a national semiconductor strategy focused on back-end assembly, test and packaging.
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The Digital Edition of ‘Make It in Michigan’ Is Live
“Make It In Michigan,” the 2025-2026 economic development guide created by Conway Custom Content for Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC), is now live in digital edition flipbook format, complete with live links to all advertisers. Check out our interview with Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer; profiles of robust sectors such as aerospace and defense, semiconductors, and mobility and automotive; insights into why CEOs choose Michigan; conversations with leaders across the MEDC organization; Investment Profiles of Consumers Energy and the unique Kettering University; and more business intelligence about the talent, sites, tools, placemaking and higher education that combine to enhance the state’s business climate.
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This photograph of Flathead Lake in Montana was made this month by Renata Birkenbuel, a 2025 Institute for Citizens & Scholars Higher Education Media Fellow based in Missoula who is working with mentor, 2021 Fellow and fellowship advisory committee member Adam Bruns, editor in chief of Site Selection. Covering 191 square miles and with 160 miles of shoreline, Flathead Lake is the largest natural body of freshwater by surface area in the western U.S. and, says the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, “one of the cleanest lakes in the world.”
Currently at work on a reporting project about Indigenous women in media whose experiences in career & technical education and tribal colleges helped launch their careers, Birkenbuel, a member of the Montana Little Shell Tribe, is a veteran freelance journalist who serves as national education correspondent for ICT News and whose reporting has covered a wide range of subject matter from sports, the arts and health to food, business, and film and book reviews. She also teaches as a college adjunct writing instructor.
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