Friday, October 10, 2008 Arroyo sees increase in electronics exports
DESPITE the turmoil buffeting the US financial market, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo sees a "very big increase" in the country's electronics exports in 2009 as returns on new investments in the sector, led by Texas Instruments, start trickling in next year.
In her speech during the 10th Semiconductor and Electronics Industries in the Philippines, Inc. (Seipi) CEO Forum in Malacanang Thursday, the President noted that the electronics industry, which produces two-thirds of the country's total exports, struggled with a minus 22 percent growth in 2001.
Amid projections of a flat growth this year, she reminded the Seipi leaders of their industry's minus 22 percent growth in 2001 in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, and "how you recovered, and you will recover even more now because we can see investments that are under gestation."
"Texas Instruments," she added, "will formally open in January and with their market of $3 billion a year, we can expect that by yearend, we will have a very big increase in the electronics exports not to mention those new industries that (Trade and Industry Secretary Peter Favila) is nursing, or those new factories that Peter is nursing for them to locate here in the Philippines."
