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Japanese journalists tour Saipan garment factory
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Posted on Feb 22 2000
As part of their recent visit to the Northern Mariana Islands, four Japanese journalists got the chance to examine Saipan’s garment factories up close.
Reporters from the Japanese dailies Miyako Mainichi Shimbun and the Yaeyama Mainichi Shimbun spent four days reporting from Saipan and Tinian this week as part of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation’s Media Exchange Program in Micronesia.
Vice president for Tan Holdings Corporation Eloy Inos conducted a garment factory tour and helped answer the reporters’ questions regarding the economic impacts of the CNMI’s garment industry.
The reporters were surprised to learn that the garment industry delivered approximately $225 million in total economic contributions to the CNMI in 1999, including some 38% of the total revenue of the local government.
The reporters were also curious about the motives of media reports coming out of the U.S. mainland which have been critical of the Saipan Industry.
“We are a part of America, with some of America’s finest facilities that produce only one percent of U.S. domestic production,” said SGMA executive director Richard A. Pierce. “The labor unions hidden agenda to reclaim American jobs lost to foreign imports makes even less sense when you look at Saipan as the logical alternative to truly foreign garment production. Our factories provide for all of Saipan’s Americans through jobs, taxes and opportunities. Not a single mainland apparel job would be restored if our factories closed. There would be only more production coming from Asian factories.”
The 34 factories on Saipan currently employ approximately 15,000 people, of which 2,400 are local residents. A recent economic study funded by the U.S. Department of the Interior and released by Northern Marianas College in November 1999 states that the employment multiplier in the Saipan community is 1.5, which means that for every two garment jobs, one job is created in the local government or private sector.
