Mitsubishi President says Australia plants may be closed, idling 20,000 workers

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Thursday, November 16 11:45 AM SGT

Mitsubishi Australia chief furious at claims plants will close SYDNEY, Nov 16 (AFP) - The head of Mitsubishi Australia reacted furiously Thursday to reported comments by the Japanese car giant's president that its Adelaide operations could close, potentially affecting 20,000 workers.

"Quite frankly, it really pisses me off that all this is going on, that I'm up here and people are in absolute turmoil back in Adelaide," Tom Phillips told ABC radio from Tokyo.

"I was absolutely stunned and so was everybody else."

Mitsubishi's new president Takashi Sonobe was quoted in the London Financial Times as saying he was considering the feasibility of continuing in Australia with just its sales operation and would make a decision in March.

Philips said he had just had a pleasant meeting with Sonobe and the Mitsubishi board and no mention of closures was made.

"Our discussions were nowhere along those lines," he said, adding that he had no idea why Sonobe would make such comments.

"The reality of life is that if we had a stable currency right now we would be trading in the black," said Philips.

"I don't have any single doubt that we're going to get the full support of the board to continue on and make Mitsubishi Australia much stronger."

Financial Times reporter David Ibsen stood by his story.

"Sonobe said that it was true that in Australia this year there was going to be a loss and they were considering whether it was possible to stop the losses," he told ABC.

"He then said what is difficult is to continue the plant's operation and we are considering whether it's feasible to continue business in Australia with just a sales operation."

Mitsubishi, the fourth and smallest of Australia's car manufacturers, sold 81,600 cars in Australia in 1998, but the number declined to 67,200 units the following year.

The company's operating loss in Australia was 3.7 billion yen (34 million dollars) for the six months to September this year.

A spokesman for Mitsubishi's Australian operations reiterated that the losses were due to the downturn in the Aussie dollar rather than a failure to improve efficiency.

"We have met all the requirements of our shareholders that were needed as far as restructuring. We are very happy about that," the spokesman said.

"We needed to be trading profitably before the end of the year and we would have been except for the exchange rate."

The Manufacturing Workers Union said if Mitsubishi shut its assembly line and engine foundry in Adelaide, South Australia, an immediate 4,000 jobs would go but that the real damage would be far worse.

"It mean it's more far-reaching than just our members, you've got component companies and everybody else that feeds into it," said Tom Taylor, who heads the union's vehicles division.

'I mean you're talking three times, four times, possibly five times the amount the membership we've got. So it's far-reaching -- even the community, the butcher, the baker, everyone's going to suffer on this one."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------http://asia.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/business/article.html?s=asia/headlines/001116/business/afp/Mitsubishi_Australia_chief_furious_at_claims_plants_will_close.html

-- Carl Jenkins (somewherepress@aol.com), November 16, 2000


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