President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on Friday welcomed the P7-billion investment plan of Mitsubishi Motors Corp. (MMC), saying it would create more job opportunities.

MMC president and CEO Takao Kato paid a courtesy call to Marcos in Malacañang on Thursday and discussed his company’s expanded investment plan for the country.  

Kato informed Marcos that the expansion would introduce a new production model at the Mitsubishi Motors Philippines Corp. (MMPC) plant in Laguna, which Marcos approved. 

“The jobs that it will provide, that your investment will provide, are very important to us and certainly, vehicle manufacturing is one of those,” Marcos said. 

He said that MMC will now be part of the government’s Revitalizing the Automotive Industry for Competitiveness Enhancement (RACE) program, a new proposed version of the Comprehensive Automotive Resurgence Strategy (CARS) program. 

Marcos hoped MMC’s inclusion would help in its expansion plans.

Most important market

Meanwhile, Kato said the Philippines is MMC’s most important investment in Southeast Asia, citing the country’s good and stable economy.

“In the ASEAN, (the) Philippines is our number one market,” Kato said. 

MMC is a multinational automobile manufacturer founded in April 1970, maintaining production facilities in Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, China, Russia and the Philippines.

MMPC, on the other hand, is a 100-percent wholly-owned subsidiary of MMC, which began operations as Chrysler Philippines Corp. in 1963 as the assembler and distributor of Chrysler, Dodge, and Plymouth passenger cars.

MMPC has a manufacturing plant located in Santa Rosa, Laguna, with 50,000 units of annual production capacity. It has the potential to expand to 100,000 units per year.

As of November last year, the motor vehicle industry sold 425,208 units, with Mitsubishi Motors cornering 19 percent of the domestic market but second only to Toyota with 46 percent.