Ford helps local suppliers win overseas contracts

As the Australian car manufacturing industry grinds to a halt, Ford has given a ray of hope to the struggling parts supply industry and university graduates who want to get into the car business.

Ford has assisted nine key suppliers win lucrative contracts with foreign-made Ford cars, and will next week host a supplier fair in Geelong that will be attended by senior executives from Ford's global purchasing and product development divisions.

Although Ford announced last month that 300 blue collar jobs would be cut early from its Geelong and Broadmeadows plants, the company has managed to move 20 factory workers across to its engineering division -- which with a headcount of 1100 staff will become the industry's biggest group of design and engineering employees in Australia by 2017.

Ford will also hire 20 sales and marketing executives this year followed by a planned intake of up to 20 university graduates for supporting roles next year. One of the parts suppliers that has won an overseas Ford contract, MHG Asia-Pacific, with factories in Geelong and Melbourne, makes glass as well as interior and exterior plastics for cars.

Later this year it will begin shipping those parts to Thailand for a top-secret Ford passenger car that is yet to be announced. It is the first time since MHG opened its doors in 1970 that it has exported parts to the Ford factory in Thailand.

Ford currently imports the Fiesta and Focus small cars and the Ranger pick-up from Thailand, but other models are due to be built there, including an Australian-designed and engineered seven-seater SUV based on the Ranger.

MHG cannot say how many parts it will ship to Thailand and what the contract is worth because of confidentiality agreements with Ford.

However, MHG is understood to have not necessarily been the cheapest supplier pitching for the business.

"It's a very competitive, global bidding process but we won out in the end," said MHG chairman and founder, Steve Haritos. "You've got to provide a product and a service that's better than those in other parts of Asia."

Mr Haritos said he is fighting to keep his company alive -- and protect the jobs of his 180 workers at two sites, in Geelong and Melbourne -- once Toyota, Holden and Ford shut their factories by the end of 2017.

MHG currently supplies parts to all three car local makers. "There's a challenge ahead (but) our aim is to save as many jobs as possible, hopefully we won't lose one job," said Mr Haritos. "We can only give it our best shot."

Meanwhile Ford said its plans to introduce updated versions of the locally-made Falcon sedan and Territory SUV are well on track, even though 80 per cent of the cars sold so far this year were imported.

Despite continuing their sales slide, the new versions of the Falcon and Territory will be introduced in the second half of the year, the company says.

This reporter is on Twitter: @JoshuaDowling