Honda picks Batangas as hub

Honda Cars Philippines Inc. (HCPI) has decided to abandon its earlier plan to set up a distribution hub inside the Subic Bay Industrial Park.

This was announced yesterday by HCPI assistant vice president Alfredo Magpayo who added that HCPI instead is planning to use Batangas as its distribution hub.

"Using Batangas as a distribution hub was deemed to be more logically desirable than Subic," Magpayo.

HCPI had earlier studied the feasibility of importing, storing and trading its brand new Honda vehicles from inside the Subic Freeport.

The vehicles HCPI planned to import through Subic would then have been distributed to its nationwide dealership network.

Under the proposed Subic operation scheme submitted by HCPI assistant vice president for vehicle sales and business development Gabriel Peren, HCPI would import 400 units of Honda vehicles from Japan and other Asian countries every month for distribution nationwide.

"HCPI decided against using Subic because HCPI would not be entitled to any tax and duty breaks once the vehicles are distributed to HCPI’s dealers," Magpayo said.