Local auto industry may recover earlier than expected

MANILA, Philippines—The woman in charge of Universal Motors Corp. (UMC), the country’s largest and oldest wholly Filipino-owned assembler and distributor of light commercial vehicles, believes that the local auto industry will recover from the fallout of the disasters in Japan earlier than expected.

Elizabeth Lee, chief operating officer of UMC and head of the Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines Inc. (Campi), said that although the industry has already begun feeling the impact of the twin disasters in Japan, Philippine vehicle assemblers could be in a position later this this year to pick up and recover lost sales.

Lee was confident that UMC itself could even grow by up to 5 percent this year.

The full effects of the earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan are only now being felt locally, where plants have been scaling down operations temporarily due to supply problems. But this development may only be temporary, Lee said, who admitted that even UMC had to slightly reduce operations.

“Everybody had scaled down [their operations]. We have to optimize and schedule our production. We’re going to feel [the full brunt of the disasters] this May and June,” Lee said on the sidelines of UMC’s 5th anniversary celebration of Nissan Urvan’s “UR van, UR business” program.

Although vehicle demand currently outpaces supply, Lee is confident that, as far as UMC is concerned, operations will begin to normalize as early as July.

“We’re looking to recover sales in the latter part of the year. Sales will really pick up by then,” Lee said.

This is the reason why UMC has not decided to downgrade its growth projections at this point, she added.