GMA to visit Intel HQ

To show appreciation of Intel Corp.’s continued and unwavering confidence in the country and to convince other American electronics and information and communications technology firms to invest in the Philippines, President Arroyo will visit Intel’s headquarters in Santa Clara, California when the presidential entourage proceeds to the United States after the 10th Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders Forum in Los Cabos, Mexico.

The president will be accompanied by Trade Secretary Mar Roxas II, Board of Investments managing head Gregory Domingo, and several other key government officials and electronics industry leaders. Early this year, it announced its plan to invest another P4.5 billion at its state-of-the-art facility in Cavite which President Arroyo recently visited. The company’s biggest flash assembly and test factory, the Cavite plant is also Intel’s largest microprocessor factory in the world producing the fastest Pentium 4 microprocessors. Intel employs 6,000 highly skilled workers and has invested $1.3 billion in the Philippines since it started operations in 1974.

Intel is the first American semiconductor company to locate in the Philippines. Intel’s Philippines operations exported about $5 billion in 2001 and the company is expecting to export more this year. Intel Philippines manufactures over a million processors a month.

Intel is world leader in manufacture of semiconductor products with net revenue amounting to $26.539 billion in 2001. It has 45 offices, 12 fabrication facilities and 12 assembly and test facilities, and 80,000 employees worldwide. Founded in 1968 to build semiconductor memory products, Intel Corp. introduced the world’s first microprocessors in 1971.

President Arroyo has repeatedly recognized Intel’s continued confidence in the country and its unwavering support on her call to make information and communications technology the lynchpin of Philippine industrial development.

The presidential visit to the United States is seen to encourage American businessmen to invest in design and development as well as offshore outsourcing to the Philippines its back office operations. The Philippine government has assured Intel and other investors that it would extend all the necessary assistance and support to ensure the smooth operations in the country.