GLOBAL tobacco company Japan Tobacco International (JTI) announced over the weekend that Manila is the latest site for its Global Business Service (GBS) Center, and it is expected to generate employment opportunities in the next few years.
JTI, in a statement, said the company hopes the facility, similar to its factory in Batangas, can help soften the recessionary impact of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, which will surely result in loss of thousands of jobs in the coming months.
The GBS center will employ up to 350 people within the next three years, bringing the total number of JTI employees in the Philippines to 5,000 including those in a manufacturing plant in Batangas province, the company said.
The tobacco firm said a management team tasked to run the JTI GBS in the country is already in place.
“The office is slowly taking place in an office building in McKinley. Hiring is in full swing,” the company said.
The Manila GBS Center will be JTI’s third global hub after recently opening two similar centers in Warsaw, Poland and in St. Petersburg, Russia. It will service all the JTI markets in Asia Pacific.
“We thank the government for allowing us to make significant strategic investments in the Philippines over recent years,” John Freda, general manager of JTI Philippines, said.
Freda said the establishment of the Manila GBS Center is proof of the company’s confidence in the Philippine market and evidence of its continuing commitment to create jobs in support of national development.
“We are pleased to add the GBS Center to our employment offerings in the Philippines further underpinning our commitment to helping the government in creating job opportunities in the country,” he said.
The company said GBS center will provide sophisticated solutions, consulting and analytics to satisfy complex operational challenges in the areas of finance, marketing and sales, people and culture, procurement, global supply chain and information technology.
The business center is expected to increase the operational efficiency of all JTI markets in the Asia Pacific region by streamlining activities, harmonizing business processes and sharing best-practices not only in the region but across all 130 countries the company operates in.
JTI’s investment in its Manila GBS Center is the latest addition in a string of investments it has made in the last three years.
In 2017, JTI built a manufacturing plant in Batangas which generated new employment, and subsequently spent P50 billion to acquire the tobacco-related assets of Mighty Corp.
The company said the Batangas factory, recognized by the Philippine Economic Zone Authority as a top employer, is currently undergoing further expansion of its facilities.
“With its hardworking, talented and English-proficient workforce coupled with a robust business processing industry, Manila is perfectly suited to take on this very important role,” Akhtar Hannan, general manager of the GBS in Manila, said.
JTI Philippines manufactures and distributes the brands Winston, Camel, Mevius, Mighty and Marvels.
