Tsuneishi shipyard: A boon to Cebu's economy

For our special presentation tonight on Straight from the Sky, we bring you a Direct Foreign Investor (DFI) who was lured to Cebu’s Information Technology advantage especially in the Call Center Industry, where a year ago, we were still an emerging destination, but this year we have finally hurled that together with the rest of the Philippines. Now the Philippines have gained the reputation of being the world’s number one in the Call Center Industry.

 This DFI is dubbed Lingo 24, which is a translation company and with us is its founder and CEO Christian Arno, a young Scot from Edinburgh. Aside from Lingo 24’s headquarters in Scotland, they have facilities in South America and for Asia, they picked the Philippines and in the Philippines, they chose to come to Cebu. What I found remarkable with Mr. Arno is that he admitted to me that before February this year, he never even knew that Cebu existed at all! So when it came to looking for a facility in Asia, the Philippines was their choice, hands down. Hence, they learned that Cebu existed so they came and yes, they have established Lingo 24 here.

 There are not that many translation companies in the world, which is why Lingo 24 has established themselves here in Cebu, the center of the Philippines, which leads in language diversification. So tonight, you will learn more about Lingo 24 and the importance of the translation industry in the global economy with their Oxford trained CEO Christian Arno on SkyCable’s channel 15 at 8:00pm.

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 Speaking of FDIs, I was invited (but couldn’t attend) to grace the naming and delivery of M/V Cape Sampaguita at the Tsuneishi Heavy Industry (Cebu), Inc. (THICI) in Balamban last Wednesday, which is a 180,000 DWT Bulk Carrier owned by the Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha Ltd dubbed as the 10th largest container transportation and shipping company. This is the 2nd biggest vessel that Tsuneishi delivered to its customers. What is remarkable in this delivery is, the vessel was built by Cebuanos (under the supervision of the Japanese bosses) and now it will be operated by 21 Filipino sailors.            

 Tsuneishi as we all know is a partner the Aboitiz Group of Companies and, as pointed out by Aboitiz Equities Ventures (AEV) CEO and President Erramon Aboitiz, the Philippines is poised to be the 4th largest shipbuilder in the world using the combined output of the Tsuneishi Balamban shipyard and the Hanjin Shipyard in Subic Freeport. Tsuneishi alone builds around 18 vessels a year which are the 58,000 DWT bulk carriers, while five of these vessels are the cape-sized ships such as the M/V Cape Sampaguita.

 The impact of Tsuneishi in the municipality of Balamban is huge as it pays annually some P2 billion in salaries and wages to the 11,000 workers in the shipyard. This is why, Cebu retailers like Gaisano are cashing in on this new found wealth of the people of Balamban, after all, these people need to buy basic goods to feed and clothe their families. This is not to mention that because of the presence of Tsuneishi in Balamban, Cebu has become a major dollar earner for the country. That’s what Tsuneishi is in Cebu’s economy.

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 Pres. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino, III is literally walking on clouds these days as he has earned the friendship and respect of US Pres. Barrack Obama, who cited Pres. PNoy for his campaign against graft and corruption. The elated Pres. PNoy responded saying “Transparency is the key to Good Governance.” While I will not take away from PNoy some of the reforms he has done, especially when he listened to our cries to have Department of Tourism (DoT) Secretary Alberto Lim and Customs Chief Angelito Alvarez out of their posts. However, he must do more to fight graft and corruption which is still prevalent in our society.

 What we need right now is not lip service from the President because he is in seventh heaven in New York. So if we used his rhetoric, then Pres. PNoy must now make it his administration’s priority to pass the Freedom of Information Act, which has been left hanging and worse, he never made it a priority at all. Saying is one thing, but doing it is a different ballgame.

 Today in the fight against corruption, the Aquino administration has gone on a witch hunt against the administration of former Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, especially on the alleged cheating in the 2004 and 2007 elections. But as Department of Justice (DoJ) Leila de Lima pointed out last week, there is no direct evidence linking the former President to the cheating.

 The whole damn truth is a great majority of our politicians cheat in all the elections. But the only way they can gain respectability is to blame the cheating on former Pres. Gloria Arroyo. This is how low our politicos have gone. For sure they cheated for themselves and carried Pres. Arroyo who gave them financial assistance, which is normal in Philippine elections.

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