Casio Set to Buy Tijuana Plant Site : Japanese Electronics Firm May Create Up to 1,500 Jobs

Casio Computer, the digital watch, calculator and computer manufacturer, is the latest Japanese company to see the advantage of U.S. trade agreements that encourage the location of manufacturing plant just over the U.S. border in Mexico.

Casio has signed a letter of intent to buy nearly 14 acres of land in a Tijuana business park just south of the U.S.-Mexico border, and developers say Casio will build a maquiladora, as the foreign-operated assembly plants in Mexico are called.

The plant could total up to 370,000 square feet of space and employ up to 1,500 workers, said Oscar Amezcua, development manager for Newport Beach-based Koll Co., which is co-developer of the La Frontera business park with Grupo Gutsa of Mexico City.

“This a good indication of the kind of interest Japanese manufacturers have in the maquiladora business,” Amezcua said, adding that Casio’s land is adjacent to a site acquired recently by Pioneer Electronic Corp., a Japanese manufacturer of car stereos and home audio systems. “We hope U.S. companies will take note of this interest.”

sh Vying With Sharp

“Casio is an example of how these manufacturers are moving out of Pacific Rim sites and into Mexico, mainly to better serve the California market for their products,” said Sean Doyle, an agent with Coldwell Banker International of San Diego, a brokerage that follows the maquiladora market for multinational clients.

Officials at Casio’s U.S. subsidiary’s Saddle Brook, N.J. headquarters were not available late Friday afternoon to discuss their plans for the property.

But the site will be used to assemble or manufacture a variety of products destined for the U.S. market, sources said. The sale is expected to close next month.

With 1988 sales of $1.436 billion, Casio is one of the world’s leading makers of digital watches and is vying with Sharp for the pre-eminent position in desk-top calculators. Casio also makes computerized cash registers as well as musical instruments, including organs.

Casio was reported to be shopping around for land in Tijuana after settling on Baja California over the El Paso-Ciudad Juarez area as a plant site.

Casio is one of several Japanese and South Korean electronics companies that have either located or expanded facilities in the border region in recent months to take advantage of low Mexican labor rates.

Sources said Casio also intends to build a large warehouse and distribution plant on the U.S. side of the border in San Diego to process products assembled at the new Mexican facility. Casio has not signed a deal for the San Diego site, however, sources said.

Koll Co., which signed a deal with Gutsa to develop the 87.5-acre business park in Tijuana last May, is one of the largest commercial real estate developers in the western United States. Koll owns, manages or is developing a total of 27.5 million square feet of office, industrial and retail buildings in four states.