By Haidee V. Eugenio
Variety Assistant Editor

UNITED International Corp. says it is not closing its garment factory in San Antonio in June, and has been renewing the contracts of its employees.
“It is just a rumor that the factory is to be closed in June. We do not have any plan for closing,” the UIC management stated in an April 12 notice.
The one-page notice, posted on UIC premises, also asks factory employees to disregard the rumor and instead “focus on your jobs.”
The rumor was earlier reported by the Saipan Tribune which is owned by garment magnate Willie Tan.
UIC president James Lin was back on Saipan last week, prompting the management to issue the notice.
Lin was off-island when the report came out stating that UIC would close on June 30. At that time, no source would confirm the report although some said they heard “rumors” about it.
But like other garment factories on Saipan, UIC has reduced its workforce in recent years, from over a thousand to just over 500 today.
At least 14 garment factories on Saipan have closed since January 2005 when the World Trade Organization liberalized trade rules that now allow Third World countries to export more of their cheap garment products to the U.S.
Saipan’s biggest garment factory, Tan’s Concorde Garment Manufacturing Corp. with over 1,000 employees, closed in December.
Garment industry sales dropped by $170 million or 26 percent — from $662.7 million in calendar year 2005 to $492.16 million in 2006.
The garment industry pays the government a 3.7 user’s fee on the factories’ finished products, and is exempted from paying the business gross revenue tax.