Mazda opens new plant in Chon Buri

HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn presided over the grand opening of MPMT at the Eastern Seaboard Industrial Estate in Chon Buri yesterday.
The plant, which started production in January, is the result of a 100-per-cent Bt7.3-billion investment by Mazda Motor Corp, and will churn out 400,000 SkyActiv-Drive transmission sets annually.
Apart from supplying the AutoAlliance Thailand (AAT) plant in Rayong, where Mazda vehicles are assembled, the transmission sets will also be exported to other Mazda assembly plants around the world, said Masamichi Kogai, president and chief executive of Mazda Motor Corp.
“With the purpose of strengthening our business foundation in such an important market, Mazda incorporated MPMT as a wholly owned affiliate in February 2013, and its role is to make the most important core parts of our vehicles, including engines and transmissions,” he said.
MPMT will also produce SkyActiv engines later this year, with an additional investment of Bt3 billion to produce 30,000 units per year initially.
“The engines and transmissions produced by MPMT will supply our production facilities around the world including Malaysia, Vietnam, Mexico, China and Thailand,” Kogai said.
Mazda has a target of producing 1.49 million vehicles this fiscal year and 1.65 million by the end of the 2016-17 fiscal year, compared with 1.399 million units in fiscal year 2014-15.
Because of increasing demand, Mazda needs to raise production at its Chinese and Thai plants rather than in Japan, Kogai said.
Construction of the MPMT plant commenced in February 2013 and took more than two years to be completed, in March this year. Once the 400,000-unit-per-year maximum capacity is reached, the new plant, which employs 550 people, will help Mazda produce a total of 1.5 million transmission sets per year.
“Full-scale operation at MPMT has made Thailand the first country outside of Japan where Mazda can carry out comprehensive vehicle production, from engine to transmission through to final vehicle assembly,” he said.
“Now it is no exaggeration to say that, as a production base for Mazda, Thailand is as important as Japan itself.”
The strong yen has forced Mazda to search for production bases outside Japan, and the company has landed big investments in China, Mexico and Thailand for auto production, he said.
According to Hidenori Kawakami, president of MPMT, the advantages of investing in Thailand for the new transmission plant included strong synergy with AAT, an outstanding supplier network, supportive government policy, an excellent workforce, and the country’s geographic advantage as a centre of Asean.