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04-11-2002
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Cebu’s investor appeal ‘not bad’: MEZ 2
official
By Cherry T. Lim
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THE investment
picture in Cebu is “not as bad as painted” by some people. In fact,
a foreign investor has even chosen Cebu over China in its search for
a place to locate its business.
In an interview yesterday,
Wilfredo Sa-a Jr., operations manager of Mactan Economic Zone (MEZ)
2, said Japanese investor Yamashin Filters had chosen to expand its
operations in MEZ 2 after ditching China as a potential investment
site.
The zone is also currently getting many inquiries from
foreign investors.
“At the rate we are getting inquiries
from foreign investors, nag-duha-duha mi (about accepting local
investors) because we have limited space,” he said. (We are unsure
whether we can accommodate local investors.)
Sa-a said the
zone’s priority was foreign investors because they could bring new
capital into the country.
In a statement yesterday, Yamashin
Filters director Mitsuhiro Goto said, “The Filipino workforce has
consistently delivered good products, and Filipinos provide
businesses with a reliable management team.”
Yamashin
Filters, which manufactures filters for heavy equipment, had been
operating at MEZ 1 since 1989 in a 3,000 square-meter facility with
130 employees.
The company held the groundbreaking for its
MEZ 2 plant last March 1.
Sa-a explained that Yamashin
Filters president Atsuhiko Yamazaki and Goto had visited China three
years ago to study the feasibility of doing the expansion in China
after their customers, who had relocated there, cited the supposed
competitive advantage that country afforded. However, after their
trip, they realized that Cebu was still the better option.
Hidden costs
Sa-a said that despite the
much-vaunted low labor costs of Chinese workers, it might not really
be cheaper to set up shop in China.
There are “hidden costs”
involved in investing there. In a meeting last week among zone
operators in the Philippines, it was discussed that investors might
be required to put up dormitories for the Chinese workforce and
subsidize their accommodations, he said.
Yamashin Filter’s
new site in MEZ 2 is more than twice the size of its MEZ 1 facility
at 7,500 square meters. The company expects to employ 250 to 350
people in the next three years.
“MEZ 2 still has about five
hectares ready for locators,” Sa-a said. There are also “other
areas” that could be tapped for “future development.”
Sa-a
said most of those who inquired about the zone were Japanese as well
as businessmen from Metro Manila.
Despite the China threat,
he said MEZ 2 had not given any “special concessions” to entice
investors to locate there.
MEZ 2 is a product of
AboitizLand, the real estate arm of Aboitiz & Co., one of the
Philippines’ most diversified management investment companies with
business interests in various
industries.
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