Hyundai putting up P5 billion assembly plant in Philippines

MANILA, Philippines — Hyundai Asia Resources Inc. (HARI) is investing P5 billion over the next five years to assemble models of the Korean automotive giant in the Philippines.

“We have already earmarked a P5 billion investment for the next five years for the assembly operations in the Philippines,” HARI president and CEO Ma. Fe Perez-Agudo said yesterday on the sidelines of the 2018 Manila International Auto Show.

Agudo said the assembly plant in Laguna would initially produce one model this year before adding new models and increasing production in the coming years.

“We would have our pilot assembly on May 14. We will run the full CKD (completely knocked down) operations by June 1 and commercial production by September,” she said.

Agudo said the pilot assembly next month would include the first 15 to 30 training vehicles that HARI will produce “to test the quality of the model.”

She said the firm intends to produce between 3,000 and 5,000 units of the said model,  initially for this year, starting September.

Agudo said around 1,800 small and big parts would be assembled in the plant which would ramp up capacity to 50,000 units annually in four years’ time.

HARI serves as the official distributor of Korea’s Hyundai in the Philippines.

For this year, the company aims to sell 42,000 units, up 10 percent from the previous year.

“With the new models we will launch, we hope we will continue to inspire and attract a new breed of millennial customers,” she said.

HARI launched four new models during the opening of the Manila International Auto Show yesterday.

“Expect more to come for the year. Some facelift models and new models are coming in,” she said.