Palace: Texas Instruments investing US$1B for expansion of Baguio, Clark facilities

Malacañang on Thursday said American company Texas Instruments Inc. (TI) would invest around US$ 1 billion for the expansion of its facilities located in Clark and Baguio City.

During the meeting with President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. on Wednesday, the US-ASEAN Business Council said that the microprocessors manufacturing company would submit in two weeks the application covering the expansion of its Clark and Baguio City sites, which may reach US$1 billion CREATE (Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises) threshold.

According to the Presidential Communications Office, the TI’s investment plans are in line with the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 that was signed into law by US President Joe Biden in 2022.

The law aims at building and making historic investments that will poise US workers, communities, and businesses to win the race for the 21st century, the PCO said.

For his part, Marcos welcomed the firm's investment plans, saying that these are the areas and sectors in the economy that the Philippines would like to be involved in.

“And we have a great deal of [dependence] already… of our exports. We do not see why we should not further support and enhance the sector of the economy because it has (done) well,” Marcos said in a statement.

Marcos said this was a good potential for the Philippines as the country has a workforce that is accustomed to working to foreign corporations.

He added that the Philippines has already undertaken a very comprehensive program of upskilling and reskilling its workers in order to take advantage of the new niches in the labor demand and the labor market.

The TI firm makes electronics more affordable through semiconductors, having in mind the shortage of chips in the global economy. — Anna Felicia Bajo/RSJ, GMA Integrated News