Mitsubishi P2-B stamping plant in Laguna seen ready by 2018

President Aquino tours the newly inaugurated factory of Mitsubishi Motors Philippines Corp.

STA. ROSA, Laguna—Mitsubishi Motors Philippines Corp. (MMPC) on Friday broke ground on its P2-billion press stamping facility here.

The capital outlay for this project forms part of MMPC’s P4.3-billion committed investment under the Comprehensive Automotive Resurgence Strategy (CARS) Program.

Yoshiaki Kato, president and CEO of MMPC, said in a briefing here that the stamping facility would be used to produce the large body shells for the hatchback and sedan units of the Mirage, which was the model enrolled under the CARS program.

According to Kato, the facility, which has a capacity of producing 30,000 units per shift, will be fully operational by January 2018. It will enable the car assembler to meet its production target of 30,000 units of Mirage by that time.

The capital infusion, along with the other planned investments in the production line, would allow MMPC to raise the local content of the Mirage to 35 percent , which is targeted to increase to more than 50 percent by the end of the six-year  period prescribed by the CARS program.

By the end of that period or by 2023, MMPC is expected to have produced 200,000 units of the Mirage, doubled its manpower to more than 1,800 employees, and enabled the transfer of new technology from Japan, Kato said.

This is the first time MMPC will be producing the Mirage in its assembly plant in Laguna, which currently produces the Adventure and L300.

Production for these two models, however, will cease by the end of 2017 as these will be phased out due to the government’s Euro4 fuel compatibility requirement. The Adventure will be replaced by another MPV model that will be produced in Indonesia.

MMPC is one of the two automotive assemblers that have been accepted to the government’s CARS program, which dangles some P27 billion worth of incentives. The other is Toyota Motor Philippines Corp.