The European Commission on Monday approved a proposed joint venture between the world's largest computer chip maker Intel and French-Italian group STMicroelectronics to produce flash memory.

"The transaction would not significantly impede effective competition in the European Economic Area (EEA) or any substantial part of it," the commission said in a statement.

The European Union's antitrust watchdog found that strong competitors are present for their products and customers would be able to continue sourcing their needs from a sufficient number of alternative vendors.

STMicroelectronics is active in the semiconductor industry and offers a broad range of semiconductor products, from discrete diodes and transistors to complete platform solutions.

Intel offers microprocessors, chipsets, and other semiconductor components, as well as platform solutions for data processing and communications devices.

The joint venture, named "Numonyx" and worth 3.6 billion U.S. dollars, will operate worldwide in the sale of so-called "flash memory," a type of memory which is widely used in data storage cards, in mobile phones and other portable devices.