Honda wants direct subsidy for Filipinos in buying PH-made cars

MANILA, Philippines — Honda Cars Philippines Inc. has urged the government to use a portion of the proposed $600 million support for the automotive industry for a program that would enable more Filipino consumers to purchase locally assembled vehicles.

“I think the government is considering either incentives or tax support for domestic manufactured vehicles but I hope the government will come up with a more realistic kind of support. I expect that Filipinos will be supported by the government so it will be easier for you to buy (Philippine made) products,” HCPI president and general manager Toshio Kuwahara told reporters Wednesday night.

“People here in the Philippines who buy cars pay a lot of taxes and duties like the value added tax, and excise taxes. If the government can reduce such taxes and duties especially for Philippine manufactured cars, then that could be one of the ways (through which) the government can support Filipino (consumers),” Kuwahara explained.

Cabinet Secretary Jose Rene D. Almendras earlier disclosed that the Philippine government was considering to invest more or less $600 million (equivalent to at least P26 billion) in the form of both fiscal and non-fiscal support to help revive and further boost the local automotive manufacturing sector.

“Maybe part of the $600 million could be used for (the subsidies). It’s the government’s and politicians’ job to stimulate the Philippine automotive industry,” Kuwahara further said.

HCPI is even willing to add more models that can be produced in its assembly plant in Sta. Rosa, Laguna and increase the production volume for the Honda City, should the provisions under the proposed automotive manufacturing roadmap prove to be viable. What was crucial, he added, was for the government to successfully stimulate people into buying more of the Filipino-made products, such as in the case of the automotive industry.

Meanwhile, HCPI launched on Wednesday night two new variants of the Honda City, the company’s best-selling subcompact sedan.

The two new Honda City E Navi+ variants are equipped with the audio-visual Navigation (AVN) system by Garmin International. These new variants will retail for P816,000 for the manual transmission and P856,000 for the CVT.

These two new variants, which will add to existing four Honda City variants, are expected to further boost sales of this model by about 100 units to more than 800 units in a month.

Honda City, the only model manufactured the HCPI plant in Laguna, is seen to account for a little over 50 percent of the company’s total target sales of 15,000 units for fiscal year March 2014 to April 2015.

According to Kuwahara, they are studying the possibility of using the same Garmin AVN system in other models that are currently available in the Philippines. In other countries, other models have been sporting such navigation systems for some time now, he added.

“So far, we only have the AVN system for the Honda City but we will study market reaction first. We’re quite optimistic that this navigation system will be supported by Filipino motorists,” Kuwahara added.