The world’s largest factory of tennis balls is expected to transfer from China to the Philippines and the move is seen boosting the country’s rubber industry.

HEAD International Holding, the leading global manufacturer and marketer of premium sports equipment and apparel, had expressed its intent to transfer its manufacturing facilities to the Philippine Veterans Investment Development Corp. (Phividec) Industrial Estate in Misamis Oriental in southern Mindanao, Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol said in a statement on Sunday.

This came after a meeting between Department of Agriculture (DA) officials and HEAD Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Gerald Skrobanek, who also expressed the firm’s planned expansion and the processing of raw rubber to rubber balls.





Skrobanek said HEAD was also committed not only in investing in rubber processing, but also in assisting rubber plantations in the Philippines.

Founded in the early 1950s, its manufacturing concept is built around semi-automated production lines, producing high value-added sports equipment.

The target relocation area in the Phividec Industrial Zone is a good site as it is very near the rubber-production areas in Mindanao, Piñol said.

“With the volume of rubber-based tennis balls that HEAD’s factory churns out every year, this is seen as a positive development for the local rubber industry,” he added.

Early this year, the Agriculture chief said the DA was hoping that local rubber farmers would have their own tire manufacturing plant in Mindanao before the end President Rodrigo Duterte’s term in 2022.

To do this, Piñol said the Department of Agriculture was also aiming to organize Filipino rubber farmers to form the Philippine Rubber Farmers Cooperative, which is envisioned as a direct seller of farmers’ produce to target markets.