Seagate to shift production

Seagate to shift production

BANGKOK (AP): U.S. computer disk-drive maker Seagate
Technology plans to shift part of its production from Singapore
to Thailand over the next three years, Thai newspapers reported
Monday.

The company plans to spend US$60 million to upgrade its two
manufacturing plants in Thailand this year to assemble disk
drives, The Nation newspaper said quoting Seagate's chief
financial officer Charles Pope.

But the Bangkok Post newspaper suggested that Seagate will
build a new factory in Thailand, saying construction is expected
to begin once its factory in Singapore reaches full capacity.

It said the Singapore plant is now operating at 80 percent
capacity.

Pope, who had made the comments to the two newspapers during a
recent visit to Thailand, was not immediately available to
confirm the two reports.

Seagate, the world's largest maker of hard disk drive, phased
out disk assembly in Thailand in 1997, reducing its work force to
15,000 from 44,000 before 1997.