Japan’s Mitsubishi Motors will hire another 1,300 workers in Thailand as the car market slowly recovers after being battered by the global recession.
Japan’s sixth-largest automaker, plans to increase production at a plant in Thailand this month to meet growing demand for its vehicles in Asia.
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Mitsubishi to start hiring again
Japan’s sixth-largest automaker, plans to increase production at a plant in Thailand this month to meet growing demand for its vehicles in Asia.
The carmaker will add a shift at the plant, which makes cars including Pajero Sport SUVs and Triton pickup trucks, it said in a faxed statement today. It will add 1,300 workers at the factory, it said.
Mitsubishi Motors made 5,603 vehicles with one shift at the factory in July, company spokesman Yuuki Murata said. The company didn’t disclose how much it will increase production.
Thailand will take over from the US as Nissan Motor’s main production hub for pick-up trucks, according to a report in The Nation which cited chief operating officer Toshiyuki Shiga.
Shiga said the carmaker was concerned over dramatically falling vehicle sales in the US and said that Thailand “will be our main production centre for exports to ASEAN countries, the Middle East, and Australia.”
Currently Thailand is Nissan’s second-largest production base for pick-up trucks after the US. Nissan Motor (Thailand) has annual production capacity of 120,000 trucks but has been operating at just 50% of capacity this year due to plunging exports and weak domestic demand.
Recent crashes in Thailand’s GDP and export markets, plus the drop in tourism fuelled by recession and last year’s domestic political turmoil, have dispelled illusions that the country is insulated from the effects of the global downturn. Numerous indicators of economic health are hitting the red, foreign investment is evaporating, unemployment is surging, and credit lines are freezing up. Thailand’s government still says there is a possibility of positive growth this year, despite facing a rougher ride than in the 1997 Asian financial crisis as conditions infest the real economy on a broader scale.
A clear policy framework is needed, and the development direction set forth by the policy makers should be based on reliable information on the current status of infrastructure development. Systematic, periodic, and internationally-standard information collection within the infrastructure sector will provide Thai policy makers with good background with which to assess the current situation, identify bottlenecks, set clear policy direction, and prioritize projects more effectively .
