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CLARK
FREEPORT—President Arroyo said Thursday the Philippines
is the best value and the best place to invest in Asia,
saying that the country has become an increasingly
competitive location for manufacturing and high-skilled
jobs along with services and the booming call-center
business.
The
President made the statement at the groundbreaking
ceremonies of the $1-billion Texas Instruments (TI)
facility here.
Joining
the President at the TI groundbreaking ceremonies were
Trade Secretary Peter Favila, Reps. Carmelo Lazatin and
Aurelio Gonzales Jr. of Pampanga and Junie Cua, Bases
Conversion Development Authority president Narciso Abaya,
Clark Development Corp. president Levy Laus, Clark
International Airport Corp. chairman Nestor Mangio and
president Victor Jose Luciano, Pampanga governor Eddie
Panlilio and Angeles University Foundation (AUF)
chancellor Emmanuel Angeles, among others.
In her
speech, Arroyo said the TI investment, an expansion of
its operations in the country, is not the only expansion
they are celebrating as TI is also undertaking a
$50-million expansion of their Baguio City facility as
well as the expansion of Sun Power and Asahi Glass.
PRESIDENT Arroyo covers the
time capsule laid at the P1-billion Texas Instruments
(TI) assembly and test facility at the Clark Freeport
Zone during Thursday’s groundbreaking ceremonies. With
the President are (from left) Mabalacat mayor Marino
Morales, Rep. Junie Cua, Clark Development Corp.
president Levy Laus, Pampanga 1st District Rep. Carmelo
Lazatin, Trade Secretary Peter Favila, Texas
Instruments-Philippines president Norberto Viera (partly
hidden), TI Technical and Manufacturing Group senior
vice president Kevin Ritchie, US Embassy charge
d’affaires Paul W. Jones and TI-Asia president Larry
Tan.
--JACOB CUNANAN
“Our
strengths are working to sustain our competitiveness for
investments. Aside from TI, a number of other
international companies are investing heavily in our
country,” the President said, citing the billion-dollar
shipyard being operated by Hanjin in the Subic Freeport.
“All I
can say is that all these are just samples to say that
we are a good business environment getting even better.
And international investors like TI are starting to
agree with this,” the President said.
She said
even during her time at the Department of Trade and
Industry (DTI), electronics was already the country’s
number one export and that TI was already a very
important part of the country’s economy.
She
wished, being in charge of investment promotions, that
the country could deepen the structure of the
electronics industry and go from just semiconductor
chips to wafer bumps.
“And I
brought that hope with me as President. And I’m very
happy that in this $1-billion facility that is being
built here by Texas Instruments, they will be producing
wafer bumps. Amid stiff competition from other
countries, TI chose us over other locations in the
region,” she said.
She said
that when the facility is completed, TI’s Philippine
operations will have the biggest number of employees in
the entire TI family, having 6,000 employees in the
Philippines:
hiring 3,000 in Clark, over and above the 3,000
employees in
Baguio City.
She also
cited that for the 3,000 high-skilled jobs that will be
made available at TI, AUF chancellor Emmanuel Angeles
has already provided the curriculum for training for the
skills needed by TI to create more jobs for her
kabalens in Pampanga.
“All of
these make us the best value and the best place to
invest in Asia. We offer a strategic location in a
fast-growing region; we’re just three hours away from
all the other capitals around the region, such as
Tokyo,
Bangkok, Beijing, Malaysia, Jakarta. And that’s the
reason why we are developing Clark and Subic into a
logistics and service center,” she said.
“Our
workers are well-educated, productive and
English-speaking. TI also thanks DTI Secretary Peter
Favila, who is the personification of our declaration to
cut red tape to simplify the requirements for
investment,” she added.
She also
mentioned that last year, Marubeni and Tokyo Electric
purchased power plants in the Philippines for some $3.5
billion and announced another $500 million in planned
expansion, which she hopes will contribute to decreasing
power rates in the country.
“I hope
these and other reforms would bring down our power rates
so that there will be more
Texas Instruments-type investments coming into the
Philippines,” Arroyo said.
She said
TI’s compatriot, Sun Power, is expanding its initial
$200-million investment in solar panels with another
$200 million to triple its capacity.
“The Sun
Power expansion is leading to an expansion of Asahi
Glass, who supplies glass for the solar panels that is
also triggering and inducing exploration for silica in
Pangasinan,” she pointed out.
“If the
$400-million expansion of Sun Power is producing all
that backward integration, what more the $1-billion of
Texas Instruments?” she said.
Texas
Instruments-Philippines president Norberto Viera and
Teaxs Instruments Technical and Manufacturing Group
senior vice president Kevin Ritchie thanked President
Arroyo for her support for their company.
TI
designs and manufactures analog and digital signal
processing and chip technologies that help customers
develop products, from affordable mobile phones to
classroom projectors to prosthetic devices.
The TI
Clark facility will incorporate environmental and energy
design features used in its newest semi-conductor
facilities in the US, prioritizing reducing water,
energy and waste from the start of building design and
construction and will be the first ground-up facility to
be Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
registered in the
Philippines.
TI
entered the
Philippines
in 1979 in Baguio City. It is one of TI’s most
sophisticated assembly and test sites, conducting final
assembly and testing of semiconductors for customers in
the computer, aerospace, telecommunications and
automotive industries in the US, Asia and Europe.
Based in
Dallas, Texas, TI has manufacturing, design and sales
operations in more than 25 countries, employing over
23,000 worldwide. |
