Toshiba eyes RP expansion

Trade and Industry Secretary Manuel Roxas II reported yesterday that Toshiba Information Equipment (Philippines) Inc. (TIP) is exploring the possibility of producing more product lines in the country.

"Toshiba is looking for strategies on how it can broaden its penetration in the domestic market," Roxas said.

TIP president Eppei Futaki recently visited Roxas to ask him to help the entry of support industries that Toshiba needs to manufacture its new line of products.

"I have directed the Board of Investments (BOI) to give its full support to facilitate the entry of these firms such as searching for factory sties and financing for their operations," Roxas said.

"We are glad that Toshiba has in mind the Philippines for its expansion plans. It has made a profitable venture in the country and we assure them that it will be the same for their future plans," Roxas added.

In the meeting, Roxas explained to Futaki the various government projects being initiated to improve the business climate in the country.

Among the government projects/programs, according to Roxas were:

• construction/improvement of the identified road network infrastructure bottlenecks in the Cavite-Laguna being undertaken. Bidding for the rehabilitation of the Alabang viaduct is slated in December;

• implementation of an Automated Export Documentation System by the Bureau of Customs in various ecozones. This system will be rolled-out to BOI-registered firms; and

• signing of a Memorandum of Agreement between the Philippine National Police (PNP), Semiconductor Electronic Industry of the Philippines Inc. (SEIPI) and DTI to address the issue of shipment hijacking.

"We continuously look for ways to make it easy for investments to come to the country. We have to be competitive not only in our skilled manpower but also in the infrastructure that is made available for business," Secretary Roxas added.

TIP serves as the manufacturing and export subsidiary of high density disks (HDDs), compact disk-read only memory (CD-ROMs), digital video disks read only memory (DVD ROM), printed circuit boards (PCBs), and personal computers (PCs).

TIP was established in July 1995 under the umbrella of Toshiba Digital Media Group in Japan. A year after, it started manufacturing readable compact disks (CDRs) and HDDS. In October 2000, it started manufacturing notebook PCs.

Located at the Laguna Technopark, TIP has produced and sold throughout the world three million units of notebook PCs, 35 million units of HDD and 35M units of optical disk drives (ODDs) todate.

Its export sales in 2002 is about $1.7 billion and accounts for 7.5 percent of total Philippine electronics exports, ranking TIP third in electronic exports in the country.