For almost everyone in Asia, President Trump’s last violent tariff tour is a disaster. Everyone, except Liu Gang, who sees this moment as a chance to double in the electronic factory in the Philippines.
Orum I tell the companies: ‘Come to the Philippines,’ Liu said to be heard above the religion of several machines, each weighing 400 tons, and stamped metal pieces for Fujitsu ATMs on the factory ground.
Mr. Trump’s hardest tariffs came into force on Wednesday in China and some of the rising competitors in Southeast Asia: Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Indonesia. Leviler, Americans, cars, bags, shoes and tools to make the world’s most sought -after places will turn into the last places that any company wants to be.
Then there are Philippines.
The Southeast Asian country was also hit with tariffs, but the economic confidence in services and agriculture was less exposed to punish the production economies of the Trump administration and to bring back its factory affairs to the USA. The goods coming from the Philippines will be 17 percent, still high, but products from Thailand will be described and will be taxed less than half of less than one -third of the tax in Vietnam.
The Philippines can be the only government in the world that calls Mr. Trump’s tariffs “good news .. Hours after Mr. Trump declared last week, a press officer for the Philippines government in question The effect of the tariffs will be “very few ve and added that we can win investors from countries with more tariffs”.
Suddenly, the Philippines appear on the radar, while companies try to find alternatives to their factories in places like Vietnam and Thailand.
At least half a dozen company, which is their customers in the United States, conducted an investigation with a 90 -minute driving distance of Manila with her neighbors in the factory of Bay Liu and in a part of Batangas province. Some of them made commitments to change production. This is an unexpected event for a country that lasts longer than the production power that attracts many other Asian countries from poverty.
The shift can be temporary. Countries like Vietnam Compete for opportunities With reverse tariffs that will disaster for Washington and their economies. And the Philippines are facing a series of difficulties that make a factory a more difficult place for a factory to continue. It is difficult to supply raw materials such as rubber and steel and are more expensive than countries like China. Construction takes longer. However, the Philippines has a big and young workforce with less cost.
Mr. Liu began to move most of the factory production from Dongguan in South China to Batangas in 2018. Mr. Trump launched a trade conflict with China in the first period.
Japanese electronics company Epson and St. American and Japanese companies, which he supplied parts to love Emerson, a Louis -based industrial equipment manufacturer, began to close and move their factories in China. At first it was difficult. There were not many options for labor. Raw materials such as aluminum were three times more expensive than China. The workers he hired were not as productive in China.
Still, everyone was optimistic. “The Philippines are China 15 years ago,” HYS Sales Director Kevin Lee said. Enterprise, the owner of the factory in Batangas. Cheaper labor helped. He uses about $ 820 per month in China; The same worker costs the same worker in the Philippines, Lee Lee said.
HYS began to send two containers worth raw materials filled with plastic pellets, aluminum layer rolls and bolts and hazelnuts every week. Mr. Liu brought Chinese engineers to work with local personnel and to automate some production processes. Four years later, they purchased 20,000 square meters of 20,000 square meters for a third factory in 2022, which will soon start mold casting and painting for products such as door panels of Toyota cars.
The Trump administration paid the decision to move production from China to the Philippines this week because it increased the tariffs on Chinese goods over 100 percent.
Now, Mr. Liu presents his factory as an alternative alternative to the “One Stop Shop” alternative for factories in neighboring countries.
While the engineers are standing close to a new customer made to the factory, they design new vehicles for metal stamping and wire cutting machines and said, “You cannot put all your eggs in a basket.”
In the newly built factory, the injection molding machines sucked plastic pellets and spit their printer trays. A few rows, three giant laser cutting device stamped and cut metal layers to be used in the power supply crates for Emerson. On the other side of the factory floor, a worker left the welding station for lunch. A box of metal tracks revealed dozens of metal parts used to keep the morning work on a Honda motorcycle.
In the Fung Shann printing factory, a few blocks away, the four companies with plants in Vietnam, Taiwan and China have recently visited to talk about the factory contract to make boxing materials for products they will begin to produce in the Philippines.
Alan Tu, Deputy General Manager of Fung Shann’s factory in Philippines, said, “We already have four new customers.” “They look elsewhere after the tariff issue.”
In the last day, the teaching guide for a scientific calculator sold by three design and quality control workers Texas Instruments – Line line – printing and read.
In the corner, the past towers of the cardboard packaging, large industrial printers were releasing marketing for food products and boxes for electric pianos and Casio calculators.
The supply chains and growing superpower tensions that took refuge by customers from Australia to Britain, some manufacturers rented land in this special economic region, one of the dozens of dozzing, which offers tax incentives to test whether they could make their products in the Philippines.
The Japanese medical device company, which is a short driving distance in another industrial park, is preparing to scale the production of products sent to the United States, including health devices such as Arkray, Lactat monitors and diabetes and urine test devices.
“We are talking about how we can change the supply chain,” Arkray Chief Supply Chain Officer Hidea Anai said. Most of the company’s development in Japan, but the latest Vietnam and Mexico opened factories around the world.
Ana said, “We can carry 70 percent of the products we send to the United States from other countries,” Anai said. Anai said that Arkray will take a month for a month to realize about half of all the products sold by Arkray and will take a month because the labels will need to be changed.
“The Philippines was 0 percent, but now they will get 17 percent fee,” he said.
“It is 17 percent better compared to Japan, which is currently 25 percent and Taiwan, 32 percent.”
