Philippines may bag $6.48 million garment orders from Japan

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines is expected to secure $6.48 million worth of garment export orders from Japanese firm Nichiun Co. Ltd. of Konoike Group, according to the Foreign Buyers Association of the Philippines (FOBAP).

In a statement, FOBAP president Robert Young said Nichiun deputy general manager Kenichi Yamada indicated the order during the Philippine-Japan business matching event on the sidelines of the official working visit of President Marcos to Tokyo, Japan last week.

“They are having a contract with a shirt brand company called Flex Japan Inc. They are now ordering from the Philippines men’s dress shirts. They will buy the fabric, they will ship it to us, and then we will stitch it and ship it to Japan,” said Young, who is also Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc. (Philexport) trustee for textile, yarn and fabric sector

Young said the Japanese firm wants the Philippines to ship nine 20-foot containers, with each container loading 5,000 pieces of men’s dress shirts, for 12 months.

“The order has still to be confirmed through the approval of the final sample. We are now working on the sample. (We will start shipping) as soon as the sample is approved,” he said.

The FOBAP president said he is now in talks with three specialized factories in Bataan, Batangas and Clark, Pampanga about meeting the securable order of the Konoike Group.

“They are convinced that Philippine garment workmanship, particularly men’s dress shirts, has been proven to be good quality and approved worldwide,” Young said.

Meanwhile, Young said more foreign buyers of garments and textiles are expected to expand sourcing to the Philippines provided lower prices than competitors are offered.

He proposed measures to bring down prices of garments and textiles in the country.

“We have to rush the other forms of energy such as solar, wind and all these kinds of renewable energy, thereby lowering the electricity cost,” he said, adding that power costs comprise five to 10 percent of a firm’s total production costs depending on the product.

Young said industry players need to implement upskilling programs.

“Because right now, our laborers are already behind on this modern and automated way of manufacturing so we have to have some upskilling program. Again, we were talking about robotics but that is still very far for the Philippines to apply but somehow we should be already semi-automated now.