SAMOA’S biggest private employer is to close its doors and dismiss 740 workers because of the wind down of the Australian car-manufacturing industry.

Yazaki EDS Samoa, one of 170 businesses in the Japan-based Yazaki Corporation, announced that it will close its production of automotive wiring looms by the end of next year.

Yazaki EDS Samoa (YES), which celebrated its 25th anniversary in May of its Samoan operation, supplies wiring harnesses and other electrical components to the Australian assembly lines of Ford and Toyota.

In a statement, Yazaki said that the announcement to close its Samoan operations by the end of 2017 – a timetable aligned with the end of Toyota Australia’s local manufacture – was because of the “withdrawal of the OEM automotive manufacturing sector within Australia”.

“Leading up to the withdrawal of operations, we anticipate it will be business as usual with no decline of business activity and we remain committed to continued quality; delivery and safety which has been the foundation of the success of Yazaki EDS Samoa over these past 25 years,” the company said.

“Yazaki Corporation is fully committed to providing support for our employees who will be impacted from this decision.

“In addition, the company will continue to contribute to Samoa by providing support for a promotion of the Samoan Government’s growth strategy.

“The company would like to express its deepest appreciation for the people and the government of Samoa.”

Yazaki Corporation added that “it had been trying to identify other alternatives for this operation”.

“Unfortunately, we have not been able to identify anything viable and must therefore announce that we will phase out production operations in Samoa.”

Yazaki Corporation was in November 2015 the subject of an investigation by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and subsequent Federal Court ruling over collusive conduct with its competitor in the supply of wire harnesses to Toyota in Australia.

The ACCC reported that the court found that “in 2003 and 2008 Yazaki made and gave effect to arrangements with a competitor, which included the coordination of quotes to Toyota for the supply of wire harnesses used in the manufacture of the Toyota Camry, in breach of the exclusionary arrangement provisions of the CCA and the Competition Code of Victoria (the Code)”.

Yazaki Corporation is a private company started in Japan in 1941. It started in Samoa with a branch factory of its Australian operation in 1991. It became a stand-alone business in 1996 and has since supplied the Australian automotive market.

The parent company has a diverse manufacturing business that includes home air-conditioning systems, gas and solar equipment for water heating, automotive wiring looms, vehicle instruments, charging connectors for electric vehicles, and vehicle safety systems.

In the 2014-2015 financial year it reported sales of $21 million from 257 sites in 45 countries. The company employs 160,000 people.

 

By Neil Dowling