Japan firm gets incentives for Subic expansion

THE Fiscal Incentives Review Board approved Nidec Corp.’s application for incentives for its P4.2- billion expansion project in Subic Bay Freeport in Zambales province on May 26, 2023.

Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority chairman and administrator Jonathan Tan said the Japanese firm’s project would enjoy incentives including tax holiday, special corporate income tax, duty exemption, VAT exemption on importation and VAT zero rate on local purchase, based on the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises law.

Nidec is a leading Japanese manufacturer of motors, motor parts and industrial equipment. The expansion will raise the company’s production capacity for strain wave gears by an additional 50,000 units per month. The company is also adding 35,000 square feet to its production area of 3.5 hectares.

The added investments will bring Nidec factories’ combined monthly exports to the US, EU, India, Korea, China and Brazil to 80,000 units.

Nidec’s expansion will also open up at least 400 job opportunities to workers in and around Subic.

Nidec established its first factory in Laguna in 1995 and a second one in Subic in 2019. Nidec Subic invested an additional $250 million to produce industrial reducer gears that generated 600 additional jobs.

The company started out from manufacturing spindle motors and related products and expanded its manufacturing activities to cover more high-tech gear products used in the aerospace, robotics and solar tracking industries.

Subsidiary and sister company Nidec Shimpo, one of the biggest global innovators for precision gearing solutions, started mass producing robotic components developed in Japan and in the Philippines. Developers described the components as extremely silent with zero backlash and smooth rotation.