China's Fujian provincial government reportedly is planning to invest CNY20-30 billion (US$3.01-4.51 billion) to develop the public LED lighting market over the next five years, and jointly set up a publicly traded company listed on China's A-share market with Taiwan-based LED companies.

Qu Xinsheng, deputy director of Taiwan's Industry Technology Research Institute (ITRI) and chairman of the LED Street Lighting Industry Alliance, has confirmed that the Fujian government has indeed proposed such an idea.

At the end of October, the Fujian High-tech Industrial Development Association and Taiwan's LED Street Lighting Industry Alliance signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to cooperate in the development of Fujian's LED lighting industry.

According to Qu, Fujian plans to install 300,000 LED street lamps in 2011, 600,000 in 2012 and up to 1-2 million in 2013. Fujian's total LED street lamp market is estimated to be around 5-6 million units. Comparatively, Taiwan will only have installed merely 20,000 LED street lamps in 2010 and the total market is 1.8-1.9 million units.

The alliance currently includes 21 Taiwan-based LED companies, including Unity Opto Technology and Everlight Electronics. If the cross-strait LED lighting joint venture indeed bears fruit, these companies will likely be the initial beneficiaries.