The Board of Investments is set to confirm the approval of the application of Toyota Motors Philippines Inc. and Mitsubishi Motors Philippines Corp. to the government’s biggest automotive incentive program within the week.
The approval under the Comprehensive Automotive Resurgence Strategy program may be given as early as Wednesday, an industry source said over the weekend.
An inter-agency committee earlier endorsed the participation of the two car companies. The endorsement implies that both companies successfully complied with the documentations required by government agencies.
The approval is on track with the June timetable of the CARS program.
Toyota and Mitsubishi can proceed with the filing of their registration under the program, with the approval depending on their completion of registration requirements.
Toyota has endorsed the Vios model as its official entry to the CARS program while Mitsubishi enrolled the Mirage model as its official entry.
The CARS program aims to generate 200,000 new jobs, bring in fresh investments worth $1.2 billion, stimulate local demand by increasing vehicle sales to $9.2 billion, and effectively implement industry regulations that will revitalize the Philippine automotive industry.
The program is anchored on the resurgence of the automotive manufacturing industry and in priming the country as a regional automotive manufacturing hub.
The Philippines recently refocused on promoting manufacturing in the face of the Asean economic integration where competition is stiff.
As result of the integration, regional value supply chains are becoming multi-layered, while transaction volumes of intermediary goods are being expanded.
The Philippine automotive industry currently produces 300 out of the 30,000 parts needed for automotive assembly.
Philippine automotive sales rose 24 percent in the first four months of 2016 to 104,176 units from 84,141 units year-on-year.
Toyota continues to dominate the industry with a 41.5-percent market share, followed by Mitsubishi Motors with 18.6 percent.
