By Victor V. Saulon
Sub-Editor
THE LOCAL office of Japanese equipment maker Hitachi Asia Ltd. is keen on participating in upcoming projects in the transportation sector as it plans to boost its presence in the country after staying quiet in the past decades, an official of the company said.
“We are monitoring the development of NCC (New Clark City) and also the connection, the connectivity of Metro Manila and Clark,” Mitsuhiko Shimizu, Hitachi Asia general manager for the Philippine branch said in recent interview.
“We are very much excited to hear this kind of development from the current administration,” he added.
Mr. Shimizu’s optimism comes after Hitachi stayed low-key in the Philippines for years.
“Frankly speaking [in the] last 20 years Hitachi was relatively quiet in this market. We focused on the Japanese domestic market,” he said about the time when the company further made its presence felt in the United States.
“In 2013-2014 we decided to focus on this market again,” he said about Hitachi’s initiative to host what it called “innovation forum” from 2016 and the succeeding years.
Founded in 1910, Hitachi in the Philippines is just a small part of the Tokyo-base company with 879 units worldwide, of which 202 are in Japan.
The Philippine branch was established in 1993 and provides solutions to the diverse needs of its customers. It markets a wide range of products and services for industrial sectors like power generation systems, transmission and distribution systems, heavy industrial equipment and components as well as elevators and escalators.
Mr. Shimizu said Hitachi has long been doing business in the country as it had delivered hydro turbines in Davao City in the 1930s, before recording its first trade business in Manila in 1938.
He said Hitachi was the first non-US power generation equipment supplier to distribution utility Manila Electric Co. in the 1960s.
Mr. Shimizu declined to disclose specific numbers on the company’s revenues or profit in the Philippines. But he said the company, which placed global revenues at $88.17 billion as of March 2018, have grown significantly in recent years.
“I would say [in the] last five years, our total sales amount in this market (the Philippines) is growing. The ratio of the growth is more than GDP growth,” he said.
He said the company is keenly observing the development of the subway project in Metro Manila to see how it can participate in terms of supplying the necessary equipment.
For Bonifacio Global City, the company is also interested in cornering a slice of the required transport equipment, as Mr. Shimizu suggested an above-ground monorail system for one of Metro Manila’s most populous commercial districts with heavy traffic during rush hours.
Hitachi’s head count in the Philippines stands at 3,498 as of end-2018 working in the group’s 11 companies in the country.
The Japanese company is offering what it calls “social innovation business” that offers complete solutions in sectors such as artificial intelligence, analytics, energy, research and development, robotics, manufacturing, security, transportation, and urban development.
