SAIPAN. In line with her economic priorities and support to the business and industrial sectors, the President of the Philippines Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo visited Luen Thai Philippines last Friday, July 12, 2002. Luen Thai is the global affiliate of Tan Holdings Corporation.

THC and Luen Thai Philippines President Willie Tan received President Arroyo at Luen Thai's main office located in Clark Pampanga, Central Luzon region. Thousands of Luen Thai employees were on hand to welcome President Arroyo as she toured around the rest of the company's facility which has 10 buildings that house the largest manufacturing operations for the apparel industry in the country. Under the Department of Trade and Industry's aggregate affiliate companies sales performance, Luen Thai is last year's number one in FOB sales performance.

President Arroyo was presented with a profile on Luen Thai's local operations and its global network including Saipan operations. Highlighted during the presentation were the efforts of Luen Thai and THC in preparing for the quota abolition in 2005 in partnership with all of its supply chain partners and in close coordination with the local and national government.

Furthermore, Tan stressed during the meeting that the survival of the industry in 2005 will depend on how much the government can do to support the players to be able to compete not just on price anymore but more on the overall competitiveness of the country and its industry. This competitiveness cover human rights compliance, attractive infrastructure in telecommunications, information technology and logistics, and the ease of import and export procedure.

However, Tan believes that in 2005, different politics and bilateral or multilateral agreements among countries will still govern the scenario. Companies on their own will have to innovate and keep on improving to remain as the choice supplier of their customers.

President Arroyo congratulated Tan for the impressive growth of Luen Thai in the Philippines. And as a result of the meeting and the facility tour which lasted for an hour, Arroyo tasked the Clark Development Council (CDC) headed by Dr. Emmanuel Angeles, to promote Luen Thai and its initiatives. CDC is the local government body that administers Clark's special economic zone and one of its priorities is to support and promote the private sector.