MANILA, Philippines – A prolonged abnormalcy in Japan will certainly affect the material supplies in the Philippine electronics industry as incidentally, most of the electronics industry locators in the Philippines are Japanese-owned companies, the Semiconductor Electronics Industries in the Philippines Inc. (SEIPI) said.

SEIPI president Ernesto M. Santiago said this noting that the major impact on Japan’s semiconductor production is not likely to be direct damage to production facilities, but disruption to the supply chain. Suppliers are likely to encounter difficulties in getting raw materials supplied and distributed, and shipping products out.

Electronics firms in the Philippines are mostly-owned by Japanese firms. Last year, electronics exports reached $31.1 billion or 61 percent of the country’s total exports.

Santiago reported that its member-companies reported that the 8.9 magnitude earthquake that hit Japan last Friday and the subsequent tsunami have caused railways servicing Northeastern Japan and Tokyo to a ground halt and closure of airport.

“Cargo planes did not be accept shipments and have implemented an embargo until further advised to all shipments due to damages to their warehouses and heavy backlog caused by last Friday incident,” he said.

According to SEIP, Japan’s revenue in 2010 accounted for 13.9 percent of the global electronics equipment which includes manufacturing of all electronics equipment such as computers, consumer electronics devices and communication gear.

Japan produced $ 216.6 billion worth of electronics equipment in 2010, compared to $ 1.6 billion worldwide.

Japanese suppliers accounted for more than one-fifth of global semiconductor production in 2010. Companies headquartered in Japan generated $ 63.3 billion in microchip revenue in 2010, representing 20.8 percent of the worldwide market.

“While not all of this actual production is located in Japan, a large percentage is produced in manufacturing facilities in Japan,” Santiago said.

SEIPI said that the damage caused by the earthquake and tsunami require an equally unprecedented response from the world community to support the on-going humanitarian relief effort for the victims.

SEIPI has a tradition of goodwill and generosity to reach out to those in need as shown in its humanitarian relief in the past (tsunami victims in Thailand, landslide victims in Leyte, etc.).