| As part of its ongoing efforts
to reduce drastic losses at the company, Ford has announced that China
will be “key” to its global sourcing strategy, and it will
be buying almost twice the value of Chinese components this year - $2.5-3
billion worth, up from $1.6 billion last year.
Chinese parts have always been cheap – mostly due to labour costs
that can be as little as 5 per cent of those in some European countries
– but only recently have they started to be produced of a sufficiently
high quality to enable them to be used by multinational carmakers.
Bill Ford said: “We are only scratching the surface in China. China
is key to our global sourcing strategy. ’’ He hinted that
as the quality of parts improves, even more of Ford’s components
will be sourced from the country.
Ford is desperate to reduce costs after posting third-quarter net losses
of $5.8 billion, up from $284 million this period last year – results
which Alan Mullaly, Ford president and CEO branded “clearly unacceptable”.
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