Ford on Tuesday reaffirmed its commitment to turn the Philippines into a regional export hub for its ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) operations and announced an additional US$50 million investment in its Santa Rosa manufacturing facility.
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The pledge was made by Ford CEO Bill Ford who on Monday confirmed a $US500 million boost for the AutoAlliance pickup and SUV plant in Thailand.
According to Ford, the Philippines investment, to be made over the next several years, is driven by the company’s aggressive new vehicle programmes for the Asian market but details of future product plans won’t be announced until later.
The Ford chairman confirmed that the investment would include facility upgrade, tooling and engineering costs related to new vehicle programmes.
Tuesday’s announcement said the increased export capacity out of Ford Philippines would clearly position the country as an important export hub for Ford within ASEAN that would be second only to its Thailand operation. Ford Philippines is the nation’s sole exporter of completely built-up (CBU) vehicles to neighbouring ASEAN countries, shipping the Mazda 323-based Lynx and Mazda Protégé sedans plus the Ford Escape and Mazda Tribute SUVs to Thailand and Indonesia.
The export programme was officially launched in March 2002 with the Lynx and, in September 2002, the first export Escape was produced at Santa Rosa. To date, 12,000 vehicles have been exported, a figure that is expected to reach 17,000 units by end of year.
Bill Ford called for the speedy implementation of various changes required under the country’s motor industry development plan.
“Our current production at Santa Rosa is about 15,000, which falls short of the optimum capacity at 40,000 units a year. The introduction of new vehicle programmes and the additional volume from exports are critical to boost production to optimum capacity. These actions are expected double our labour force to almost 1,250 from our present 650 workers,” Ford said.
