Bangkok--24 Mar--JETRO
Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO)’s its benchmarking survey on auto part industry competitiveness of ASEAN VS China and India revealed that the ASEAN countries need to strengthen cost competitiveness, with weakness found in high material cost ratio, even though there were some improvement in productivity and more localization of materials especially in steel and plastic materials. Enhancing its strengths in mould &die and machining by upgrading and using higher technology, including maintaining its advantage on low cost trained labor force, would keep ASEAN’s competitiveness position over China and India.
ASEAN countries should continuous improving and strengthening their engineering capability as it will affect many areas for instance better tooling; shorten lead time; better quality of product, which finally it will reflect long term cost competitiveness. Efforts on formulation of Regional Free Trade Agreement and potential of expanding market into China and India are reported as the opportunities for ASEAN countries.
“The 5th ASEAN Auto Supporting Industry Conference is unique and different from the previous conferences as this time it will be more focusing on seminar rather than auto part’s exhibition. JETRO’s role in ASEAN auto part industry is now to improve quality and cost competitiveness of local auto parts makers by developing “Skill Certification System for Automotive Industry” and to upgrade human resources for local auto industry by setting up “Training of the Trainers Center”. In this way, JETRO aims integration of automobile market in Southeast Asian Region. So far JETRO and JODC have sent more than 70 automobile experts to conduct “Quality, Cost, Delivery (QCD) improvement” program in this region” said Mr. Kunio Sumiyoshi, Executive Vice President, JETRO HQ.
The report also revealed details of each ASEAN country’s strength, weakness, threat and opportunity for instance Thailand is lead in quality, engineering and production system for most of the products caused by the accumulation of its technology foundation transferred from global car makers and suppliers. Meanwhile Malaysia, Indonesia, and Philippines report less competitive advantage compare to Thailand. However Malaysia has shown strength in engineering as many companies have R&D and put more invest in building R&D capability. The Philippines has excess capacity due to low production utilization due to vehicle market stagnant, however the country has achieved certain advantage in mould & die. Indonesia even having lower labor cost compare to other countries in this region but with low volume and high material cost put the country in disadvantage post.
“In addition from above useful information, the ASEAN participants will learn more from the conference of how to survive and win more business as the key leaders in the automobile industry will present the outlooks of global automobile market 2006-2012 and the procurement plan of major auto makers.” Mr. Sumiyoshi added.
For more information, please contact:
Khun Chutima Duangpanich, PR Dept., JETRO Bangkok, Tel. 0 2253 6441 ext. 147