JVC Will Begin Construction of $36-Million TV Plant in Tijuana
Japanese consumer electronics giant JVC will begin construction Thursday on a $36-million television manufacturing complex in Tijuana, joining half a dozen other Asian TV makers already there. The plant will initially employ about 500, JVC said.
Company executives said the facility is being opened to take advantage of low-cost Mexican labor and to meet terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement requiring that most of a television’s value be produced within the United States, Canada or Mexico to be sold here duty-free.
Sony, Sanyo, Samsung, Hitachi and Matsushita and many of their suppliers have already located or expanded in Tijuana in recent years.
To be complete in April, 1996, JVC’s 270,000-square-foot facility will be used for assembly of 20-inch televisions to be sold in the United States. Chassis for various TV models will also be made in the new plant. Currently, JVC makes those products in Thailand.
JVC Industrial America President Yoshitaka Iriuchijima said the new facility will not affect operations or jobs at its Elmwood, N.J., plant, where 200 workers assemble five TV sizes, from 13- to 55-inch models. The New Jersey facility is also home to JVC’s U.S. administrative, sales and design headquarters for televisions.
San Diego officials, who assisted JVC with its site selection in Tijuana, said they hope that JVC will ultimately move those white-collar operations to the San Diego area, as have Sanyo, Sony, Matsushita and other companies, to complement their manufacturing operations in the region.
“The reason that San Diego has been working so diligently with JVC is that we hope for a complete relocation of Elmwood to San Diego,” said Neil Whiteley-Ross, vice president of the San Diego Economic Development Corp.
JVC sells about 800,000 televisions per year in the United States for a 3% market share, which is about the same as its worldwide market share, Iriuchijima said. JVC’s worldwide sales of all electronics gear totaled $8 billion last fiscal year.
