Joselito Go, president of the Clark Investors and Locators Association (CILA) and president and chief executive officer of the American firm Viscase Corp., said he is not worried for his firm which, he noted, has mostly Asian markets.
During the campaign for the US presidency, Trump vowed to create more jobs for Americans by bringing back off-shore American investments. He cited particularly US investments in China, Mexico Japan and Vietnam.
“They are taking our jobs. They are taking our wealth. We have $2.5 trillion off shore. We’re going to bring that money back,” Trump said.
Viscase is a major supplier of casings for meat products such as hotdogs with the main company based in the US. The firm moved to Clark in 2000 after establishing a $14-million manufacturing plant here.
Go noted that 30 percent of the casings produced by his firm go to local markets, while the rest are exported to Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Last year, his firm produced one billion liters of casings and for this year, some 1.2 bllion litters are targeted, he said.
He noted that of the five American companies here, the biggest is Texas Instruments with its mother company based in Dallas, Texas, He said he was not aware of any plans of Texas Instruments to downsize operations or even move to US territory.
At the same time, Go also noted a decline in the demand for its casings after the World Health Organization issued a warning on the health risks from processed foods. He said that in Thailand, the demand also declined because of the death of King Bhumibol, as folk in the country eat less as part of their year-long mourning for the death of their monarch.
