Honda says car assembly operations in PH normal

Honda Cars Philippines said the massive quake and destructive tsunami in Japan will not affect its local operations, adding it can produce completely knocked-down vehicles due to available parts and components from other countries.

Japanese automakers on March 12 halted production at factories hit by Friday’s deadly quake to assess the damage to their hundreds of parts suppliers. Honda said its major assembly plant in the Suzuka complex would remain open while the Sayama factory was closed Monday.

“No problem. The calamities in Japan will not affect our operation in the Philippines. We can continue to produce CKD cars here and we can continue to import CBUs [completely-built units] from Thailand,” Hiroshi Shimizu, Honda Cars Philippines president, told reporters at the sidelines of the launch of the latest Jazz model at The Fort in Taguig City Tuesday evening.

“In our operations here, we don’t import any CBUs from Japan. We import them from Thailand. These are the Accord, CR-V, and Jazz,” he said, adding that other models like the Civic and City were the ones manufactured locally.

He said Honda also imports parts from other countries and purchases a small percentage from the Philippines.

“Last year, we produced a total of 13,000 units of Civic and City. This year, we expect almost the same number for the two models,” he said. Shimizu said 70 percent of the 16,600 sales last year were CKD while 30 percent were CBUs. “We expect the same figures this year,” he said. –Julito G. Rada, Manila Standard Today