Yokohama, Toshiba plan expansion in Philippines

YOKOHAMA Rubber Co. and Toshiba Corp. on Wednesday announced they will expand their operations in the Philippines, and that Yokohama’s expansion would make its Philippine plant its biggest facility in the world..

“Yokohama is now producing 20,000 tires a day. Their target is to double it to 40,000 a day by 2017,” President Benigno Aquino III said after a meeting with Yokohama president Tadanobu Nagumo and Yokohama Tire Philippines Inc. president Tetsuya Kuze Tuesday afternoon.

Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma said the expansion would make the Yokohama plant at the Clark Freeport zone the biggest in the world, but did not say how much the company would be investing in its expansion.

The plant now exports 96 percent of its production and sells the remaining output to the domestic market.

Yokohama now employs 1,950 employees, but the its expansion was expected to create 3,500 new jobs for Filipinos, Mr. Aquino said.

In Manila, Toshiba announced the establishment of a new subsidiary, Toshiba Philippines, to expand its market share for LCD televisions, computer systems and home appliances.

“We will expand our share by introducing products that are customized for the Philippine market,” Toshiba Philippines president Tomoyasu Yamamoto told reporters Wednesday.

“We will strengthen our service support nationwide.”

Toshiba Philippines started operations at its new Makati headquarters in April. The company said the facility will have 35 employees by the end of the year.

The technology firm said it already had a 4- percent market share for LCD TVs and a 6-percent share for personal computers, with sales of 20,000 TVs and 50,000 PCs sold in the last fiscal year.

For its fiscal year ending March 2012, Toshiba aims to achieve market shares of 10 percent for LCD TVs, 9 percent for personal computers, 4 percent for tablet computers, and 2 percent for refrigerators. –Joyce Pangco Pañares, Jeremiah F. de Guzman, Julito G. Rada, Manila Standard Today