Taiwan's government is moving closer to devising a bail-out package for the country's struggling memory chipmakers, many of which face impending loan repayments amid mounting losses.

Shih Yeh-Shiang, viceminister of economic affairs, said yesterday Taipei had earmarked T$200bn (US$6bn) in financial aid for ailing large companies, which includes producers of dynamic random access memory (D-Ram) who are the hardest hit globally among semiconductor makers.