Panasonic, headquartered in Osaka, Japan, makes a wide variety of technological products and has been since 1918. These include household appliances, televisions, phones, computers, audio equipment, cameras, and batteries of all types, including for electric vehicles. The company has a net worth of $65 billion dollars, and is a transnational corporation in its own right.
Panasonic’s Costa Rica headquarters belongs to the Panasonic Corporation of North America. The company has a facility in San Antonio de Belen, which is called Panasonic Centroamericana. Right now, they are planning on building a new warehouse and improving existing infrastructure so that they can manufacture triple-A batteries in Costa Rica and increase the throughput of Double-A battery production. The significance of this change, which the company is investing $10Million in, is that it is effectively shifting an entire production line from Asia to Costa Rica. The significance of this for Costa Ricans is that around 60 jobs will be created in the process and more income will be flowing into the country as the Costa Rica facility takes on a more important role in Panasonic’s global network. The new warehouse will add 25,800 square feet to the facility and increase the output by 200%.
Panasonic is the first company in Costa Rica to operate a factory with zero CO2 emissions, achieving this in a joint venture with the government and the state-owned electric company, which supplied 400 solar panels. This aligns with both their own vision of environmental sustainability and Costa Rica’s. Costa Rica is already powered by 98% renewable energy, and Pansonic is on course to fulfill its “Environment vision for 2050” in which it is trying to become a net-zero energy company across all its branches. Despite this, apparently the manufacturing sector in Costa Rica is contributing to the small percentage of fossil fuel usage that remains because the Panasonic factory was the first to become fully renewable in 2020.
The presence of the Panasonic branch in Costa Rica is an artifact of neo-liberalism. Neo-liberalism is the unfettered expansion of the free market coupled with the rolling back of government regulations on that same market. Neo-liberalism is the driving force behind globalization, which has allowed for a global free-market system to arise, making trade faster and extremely profitable for transnational corporations. Panasonic has placed its satellite offices, factories, and distribution centers at strategic points across the globe. Often times TNCs will set up shop in countries with little labor or environmental protections, and/or with little tax obligation, all in the name of increasing the profit margin as much as possible, usually at the expense of the country that has gotten caught in their web. What factors determine where Panasonic expands to, I do not know. However, their choice to operate in Costa Rica is apparently at least partially motivated by the relevant location of Costa Rica to their central and North American market. That is why the triple-A battery line is moving there from Asia; it is being moved closer to the demand.
Sources
Wikipedia Contributors. (2022, January 23). Panasonic. Wikipedia; Wikimedia Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panasonic#Overseas_operations
Q Costa Rica. (2021, March 3). Panasonic will invest US$10 M to move operations from Asia to Costa Rica. Q COSTA RICA. https://qcostarica.com/panasonic-will-invest-us10-m-to-move-operations-from-asia-to-costa-rica/
Panasonic Costa Rica’s Zero-CO2 Factory Driven by Multi-sector Collaboration | Video Review | Panasonic Newsroom Global. (2020). Panasonic Newsroom Global. https://news.panasonic.com/global/stories/2020/83867.html
HVACInformed.com. (2020, November 12). Panasonic And The Country Of Costa Rica Are Reducing Their Environmental Burden To Achieve Net-Zero CO2 Emissions. Hvacinformed.com; HVACInformed.com. https://www.hvacinformed.com/news/panasonic-country-costa-rica-reducing-environmental-burden-co-1600496723-ga.1613387935.html
Panasonic Environment Vision 2050 – Environment – Sustainability – About Us – Panasonic Global. (2017). Panasonic.com. https://www.panasonic.com/global/corporate/sustainability/eco/vision.html