By Othel V.
Campos | Posted on Apr. 05, 2013 at 12:02am |
[
manilastandardtoday.com ]
Ford
Philippines is selling the site of its decommissioned assembly plant in Sta.
Rosa, Laguna, its top executive said Thursday.
Ford
Philippines president Randy Krieger said the company started to disassemble the
factory, with reusable equipment to be sent to other Ford plants in North
America and Thailand.
Ford will
donate other parts of the facility to nearby schools and charity foundations,
he added.
“We’re in the
process of decommissioning that plant but I cannot say when exactly we are
going to finish,” Krieger said in an interview Thursday.
He said the
property would be up for sale through a local sales agent, but said “we never
put it on auction.”
“I don’t want
to speculate on who’s looking at the property and its current value. But I
believe that it will be on high demand given the good location. It’s a decent property,” he said.
The assembly
plant is located on a 24.1-hectare lot inside the Greenfield Automotive Park in
Sta. Rosa.
The facility
is complete with an assembly plant capable of producing four different vehicle
platforms. Prior to the closure, the
plant assembled the Lynx sedan and the Escape sports utility vehicles for
domestic and export markets and Tribute SUV and Protege sedan for export to
Thailand and Indonesia.
Ford
Philippines’ fleet of vehicles also included the Everest, Ranger, Expedition
and the Chateau Wagon.
Krieger said
the company’s decision to pull out assembly functions from the Philippines was
a business decision that was “intensively and extensively studied.”
“For us the
business equation [in the Philippines] is something that will not work for us.
It may work for other manufacturers. I hope it does and we wish them well. The
Philippine government was also supportive of our decision and so was the Peza
[Philippine Economic Zone Authority],” he said.
He said about
30 workers from the decommissioned plant were absorbed by other Ford plants
while trying to find overseas positions for others affected by the closing of
the Ford plant in Laguna.
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