SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY : CMS Enhancements Planning to Build Plant in Pakistan
While many U.S. high-tech companies are looking to Europe or the Pacific Rim as the hot spots for doing business overseas, CMS Enhancements President Jim Farooquee is casting a glance toward the Indian subcontinent.
The Tustin computer company is completing plans to set up a manufacturing plant in Pakistan, Farooquee’s native country.
CMS officials say the company is negotiating a lease on a building and hopes to have a production line running early this year.
Farooquee won’t say exactly what CMS plans to manufacture in Pakistan, citing competitive reasons. But he says the operation will involve simple manufacturing assembly work. CMS is a supplier of computer disk drives, tape backup systems and other products for personal computers.
CMS, which had sales of $200 million for the year ended June 30, doesn’t actually manufacture most of its products. It primarily buys disk drives from other manufacturers, customizes them for certain PCs, then distributes them under the CMS brand name.
The Tustin firm’s only other manufacturing facility is in Singapore, where the company produces tape systems used to copy data stored on computer hard disk drives.
Farooquee says his Pakistani heritage should be an advantage in doing business in that country. The CMS chief moved to the United States in 1976 after receiving a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Karachi Technical College.
He said many U.S. high technology firms have been reluctant to invest in Pakistan because, until the past few years, they have viewed the political situation as too unstable.
One of Pakistan’s attractions is low-cost labor. The average Pakistani worker earns just $30 per month, Farooquee says.
Moreover, Pakistan is near the developing computer markets in three huge countries: India, China and the Soviet Union. And, Farooquee says, products manufactured in Pakistan could be transported to the European market cheaper than from the United States or the Far East.
