Toshiba officials eyes Leyte for possible expansion

By Provincial Media Relations Center
November 14, 2010

TACLOBAN CITY  –  Toshiba Information Equipment Philippines Inc., a subsidiary of Toshiba Digital Media Co., made a visit on Saturday to the province of Leyte and met with Governor Carlos Jericho Petilla. The governor hinted, the hard disk drives manufacturer which has its main facility at the Laguna Technopark Special Economic Zone in Sta. Rosa, Laguna, may be looking for possible sites for its expansion.

Toshiba Corporation was among those that assured millions in pesos in investment for its electronics products expansion in the Philippines during President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III’s visit to Japan where he met with Japanese business leaders before proceeding to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Yokohama.

Reportedly, interest to visit the province was prompted after Leyte was declared as Most Business Friendly province this year, the province’s second after 2008.

The governor said, though the purpose of the visit by the Toshiba officials was mainly for courtesy call, he likewise took an opportunity to present the province’s potential as a location for their plant expansion and operation.

“I don’t know what they want, we don’t know yet what their plans are but definitely they are looking around for destinations of their plants. I just readily made the presentation just so they would know our place as they look around,” Gov. Petilla said.

Toshiba officials who met with the governor were headed by Toshiba Information Equipment Philippines President Yoshiyuki Yano, and included Executive Vice-President Tatsumi Sato, Yamaichi Electronics Co. Ltd. President Shunji Orita, concurrent Board Member of the Philippine Economic Zone Authority Francisco Ferrer.

Mr. Charlie Uykim of the Leyte Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) also escorted the visiting Toshiba officials.

Gov. Petilla said he particularly presented to the officials possible sites should they want to expand to Leyte. These possible sites are the Government Center, other private lands in Palo area or at the Leyte Industrial Development Estate (LIDE) In Isabel, Leyte which is the location of two other big companies – PhilPhos and PASAR.

Offering a site at the Government Center would form part of the long term plan for this provincial-owned property which is presently the site of government offices, historical landmark, PEZA facility Leyte ICT Park and upcoming four-star resort hotel.

Toshiba is a leading global producer of solid state devices (SSDs) and expects to boost its worldwide share in the PC notebook and enterprise drives. SSDs are hard-disk drive-like devices that store data on flash memory instead of on a revolving magnetic disk.

Toshiba’s initial export projection is $54.916 million annually. Major markets include the US, Europe, China, Japan, Taiwan and Korea.