U.S.-based Texas Instruments, the world's biggest maker of mobile phone chips, will build a second production plant in the Philippines for $1 billion, a cabinet minister said on Thursday.
Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said the plant would be located at the Clark economic zone north of Manila and would cost at least $1 billion.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has called a news conference later in the session, and Texas Instruments officials have arrived at the presidential palace.
Texas Instruments currently has a 25-hectare complex in Baguio City in the northern Philippines, and has been scouting for a new site in either the Philippines or China. This plant will provide for expansion and also as back-up to the existing facility, company officials have said.
The Baguio plant has undergone at least four expansion projects since its establishment in the 1970s and can no longer accommodate further expansion.
The Baguio plant manufactures digital signal processors and digital light processors for cell phones and liquid crystal displays.