US firm leaves China, moves some operations to PH

A leading US manufacturer of accessories for phones and other gadgets has set up shop in the Philippines in order to avoid the expensive US-China trade war, a top government official said.

A group of government and private sector officials had gone to Silicon Valley back in January to court the investment of Ever Win International Corp., a company with manufacturing operations in China.

Senen Perlada, director of the Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI) export marketing bureau, told reporters on Wednesday that the company had started pulling out its operations in China.

It was not clear if the entire China operations would be transferred to the Philippines. Nevertheless, Perlada said the company wanted to avoid the high costs of the trade war, which meant having to diversify the locations of its operations.

Ever Win recently registered at the Philippine Economic Zone Authority, according to Perlada, where the company would get tax perks such as years of income tax holiday.

Since it is located in an economic zone, the company is expected to largely export its production. Perlada said the company was supposed to operate as soon as possible because its clients were waiting for Ever Win products.

The amount of investment, project cost and number of workers were not available as of press time.

“The reason that they gave us, and [what] I saw, is that China is becoming more expensive to be a manufacturing location,” said Perlada, who was part of the group that went to Silicon Valley.

While the trade war may be burdensome for other countries, this has spelled opportunities for the Philippines, DTI officials previously said.

Perlada said the company had already taken into account the possible shift in tax perks and weighed this against the high cost of doing business in China.

“They already factored this (the Tax Reform for Attracting Better and High-quality Opportunities bill) compared to  what they are actually experiencing in China. So I think it was a very deliberate decision on their part,” he said.