Soon, half of Mirage to be made in PH

Mitsubishi Motors Philippines Corp. will be able to locally produce half of the content of its Mirage models in the next two and a half years, fulfilling one of the requirements for fiscal support under the government’s program to spur car manufacturing in the country.

Mitsubishi is one of the two participants under the Comprehensive Automotive Resurgence Strategy (CARS) program, wherein it committed to locally produce 200,000 units of the Mirage and Mirage G4 by 2023.

The CARS program is a P27-billion government initiative that initially planned to pick three car manufacturers to locally produce a combined 600,000 units within a six-year period.

Instead, only MMPC and Toyota Motor Philippines Corp.—the country’s top selling car companies—were able to qualify for the program’s requirements, leaving the third slot with an allotted budget of P9 billion allocated for a separate manufacturing scheme.

To qualify for the program’s fiscal support, part of the requirement includes the manufacture of at least 50 percent of the assembly by weight in the case of Body Shell Assembly, according to executive order No. 182.

“Our objective is that it would all be 50 percent [local content]. It would still take some time, more than two and a half years down the road,” said MMPC first vice president Dante Santoshe.

This comes as the company inaugurated its P2.8 billion stamping shop facility in Laguna, which he described as “the biggest single investment to add on to local [production].”

Company officials said the stamping facility, considered the country’s largest, would help Mitsubishi increase the local content of its Mirage and Mirage G4 units under the CARS program.

Santos said this means 35 percent of the Mirage’s content would now be locally made. —ROY STEPHEN C. CANIVEL