Saudi Arabia is reviewing an offer from Foxconn Technology Group to build a $9 billion factory that could make ICs and electric vehicle components, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The combined wafer-fab and component assembly factory would be located in Neom, a tech-focused city that Saudi Arabia is building in the desert, the report said. The Saudi government is reviewing a proposal from Foxconn and benchmarking it against other offers Foxconn has made, the report said.

However, Foxconn is also talking to the United Arab Emirates about siting the project there.

Guarantees required

Foxconn, the trading name of Hon Hai Precision Industries, is the world’s leading assembler of electronic equipment and most notably of Apple iPhones. But it has been eager to move up the supply chain and start making chips. It has a joint venture with passive components maker Yageo (seeFoxconn, Yageo form semiconductor joint venture XSemi) and is developing a partnership to make chips in India (seeFoxconn heads to India for JV wafer fab).

The Saudi government is looking for guarantees that Foxconn would direct at least two-thirds of foundry’s production into Foxconn’s supply chain, the report said.

Foxconn projects do not always go to plan. In 2017 the company agreed to build a $10 billion LCD production factory in the state of Wisconsin as part of President Trump’s plan to re-shore manufacturing to the United States. Progress at the facility was glacial the plan has mostly been abandoned.