PT Toyota Motor Manufacturing Indonesia (TMMIN) started exporting its sedan, the Toyota Vios, to the Middle East on Wednesday to grab growth in the region'€™s surging auto market.

Hiroyuki Fukui, managing officer of the Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC), parent company of TMMIN and the world'€™s largest automaker by production, said the first shipment of the sedan to the Middle East underlined Toyota'€™s commitment to making Indonesia its manufacturing base and a global automobile supplier.

'€œToyota Indonesia has proven its performance as a production base and global supplier for multi-purpose vehicles [MPVs], like the Toyota Innova and Fortuner,'€ Fukui said in his remarks during a ceremony to mark the first shipment.

Sales of the Vios will cover seven Middle Eastern countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Lebanon and Yemen.

TMMIN now operates four plants in Indonesia, with a total production capacity of 250,000 vehicles per year.

It kicked off construction of its engine plant last month, with completion scheduled for early 2016.

The firm began exporting in 1987, with its premier outbound shipment of the Kijang Super to Pacific countries, including the Fiji Islands.

Exports currently include sport utility vehicle the Rush and the small MPV Avanza, targeting more than 70 countries worldwide.

TMMIN shifted production of the Etios Valco hatchback from Thailand to Indonesia last year and production of the Vios last December.

TMMIN had earlier shipped the Vios at a small quantity to Singapore and Brunei soon after initial local production.

TMMIN also exported the so-called '€œlow-cost green car'€ Agya hatchback for the first time to the Philippines last month.

The firm aims to also export a few other models this year to boost overseas sales, but declined to specify details.

TMMIN president director Masahiro Nonami said Vios exports to the Middle East would help his firm boost its overall exports by 30 percent this year, from around 118,000 units last year.

'€œInitially, we will sell 1,000 units each month and gradually increase the volume to 5,000 units each month in accordance with market demand,'€ Nonami said.

TMMIN sees the Middle Eastern region as a prospective market for growth.

Saudi Arabia, Oman and the United Arab Emirates are the biggest markets for the firm, making up more than half of its overall sales last year.

The company'€™s total exports of 118,000 units represented 70 percent of Indonesia'€™s overall automobile exports last year.

TMMIN vice president Johnny Darmawan said that the firm would for now share production of the Vios with Toyota'€™s plant in Thailand and had no immediate plans to move the entire manufacturing process to Indonesia.

'€œWorld automobile demand is huge and TMC will decide whether or not production [of the Vios] will be concentrated in Indonesia,'€ he said.

'€œThe most important thing is to bring about maximum capacity in each [producing] country.'€

After an automotive boom in past years, car sales '€” one indicator of consumption in Southeast Asia'€™s largest economy '€” are expected to remain flat at 1.2 million units this year due to, among other factors, higher interest rates and soaring production costs, according to the Indonesian Automotive Manufacturers Association (Gaikindo).

The rapidly surging domestic market has attracted a number of world auto giants to invest in Indonesia to tap into robust demand.

Among them is Toyota, which will be spending Rp 13 trillion (US$1.14 billion) in total through to 2017, since 2012.

Popular

To my horror, it’s just a movie!

RI, Australia strengthen partnership on taxing crypto assets

Pentagon chief congratulates Prabowo on being elected President