Briefs

TMP president Satoru Suzuki said last Thursday that the company had already secured the approval of its parent firm in Japan to apply for the CARS program. Although he did not cite the specific model to be enrolled, it has already been announced that the company was considering the Toyota Vios for the scheme.

According to Suzuki, the fresh capital outlay, which may be rolled out over the next two years, will be used to further boost production capacity of the plant plus local content of the model to be enrolled under the incentive program.

As of end 2015, TMP produced from its Laguna plant a total of 49,000 units (for both the Vios and Innova models) while the local content was about 40 per cent.

“We are investing more than 1 billion yen because the CARS program also requires some additional costs for localisation. We have to meet such requirements and that’s why we’re doing this [investment],” Suzuki said.

TMP will have to ramp up its capacity as the program requires the vehicle assembler to produce 200,000 units for a single model over a span of six years. This meant an average 33,300 vehicles must be produced every year for that particular model alone.

TMP first vice president Rommel Gutierrez added that under the CARS program, there are five large plastic parts that have to be sourced locally in order to fully avail of the incentives provide under the scheme. In doing so, the vehicle manufacturer will be able to raise its local content to about 60 per cent./Philippines Daily Inquirer 

 

‘Come home' overseas Vietnam students 

HANOI — To match the region’s economic growth target of more than 6 per cent in 2016, one of the key requirements for Vietnam is a quality workforce. To that end, motivating and providing opportunities for overseas students to return and work in their home country is vital. 

This is among the strong commitments of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

As the local labour market is in a state of low quality but redundant quantity, employers are looking to “hunt down” talent from among overseas students. While this has consistently been seen as a source of potentially top-quality manpower, luring such talent home seems a daunting task. In fact, despite the advantages of learning from a top educational system – acquiring essential life and job skills – many overseas students find it hard to land a good job when they go home.

Nguyen Ngoc Anh, chairman of the Vietnamese Professionals in the UK Association (VietPro), said: “Most VietPro members want to return and work in Vietnam in the future, but exactly when depends on various factors. First will be the opportunities to operate in a professional environment. Second comes compensation. And third are the chances for career development and promotion in Vietnam as a developing country, compared to advanced countries.”Dang Mai Trang, head representative of ICAEW in Vietnam, said: “There has been some information gap that leads to low confidence and confusion, sometimes even difficulty to reintegrate when these students come back home.”

Nguyen Thi Van Anh, managing director of Navigos Search Vietnam, one of the eight ICAEW partners in the campaign, said: “Personally, I think that these meaningful activities provide the young practitioner community in the UK with a wide range of knowledge on what is going on back home.”

Tran Thuy Trang of Deloitte Vietnam also spoke highly about the efforts.

“I believe through these creative and professional events in London, those young talents who want to return and contribute to their homeland’s economic development are aware of what opportunities are opening up in a rising country – what they should take with them when they are back to be successful.” /Viet Nam News