Toyota Motor Philippines marks 20th anniversary

Attendees at the ceremony included Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Trade and Industry Secretary Peter B. Favila, Japanese Ambassador to the Philippines Makoto Katsura, TMC Chairman Fujio Cho and TMP President Hiroshi Ito. At the ceremony, TMP announced plans to donate 100 million pesos to the University of the Philippines as an expression of TMP's appreciation for 20 years of support from the local community.

TMP, established in 1988, began production and sales in 1989. As of July 2008, cumulative production stood at 410,000 vehicles and cumulative sales stood at 540,000 vehicles.

Separately today, Toyota Autoparts Philippines Inc. (TAP), which is a global production and supply base for manual transmissions for the Innovative International Multi-purpose Vehicle (IMV) project, held a line-off ceremony to mark the company's increase in annual production capacity. The increase, from 150,000 to 330,000 units, was made possible with an investment of approximately 5.6 billion pesos, and is expected to result in the employment of approximately 500 new workers.

TAP will produce roughly 270,000 transmissions for the IMV project in 2008, with plans calling for some units to be exported to the IMV production sites in eight countries and regions.

TMC's Cho delivered a speech at TMP's 20th anniversary ceremony in which he congratulated TMP on its 20 years, and also TAP on its growth as a production and supply base. Cho also expressed TMC's desire to further contribute to the Philippine automobile industry and to the nation's economic growth.

Outline of TMP/TAP