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ndonesia's car sales, which reached a record of 1.1 million vehicles in 2012, will continue solid growth this year despite the central bank's stricter lending policy. Analysts believe that the introduction of more affordable cars will make the country's car sales growth even faster in the coming years. Almost all makers including PT Mazda Motor Indonesia (MMI) booked a substantial increase in sales last year. The subsidiary of the Japanese Mazda Corporation is upbeat its sales growth will keep climbing .

The Jakarta Post's Khoirul Amin recently talked with Mazda Motor Indonesia President Director Keizo Okue to find out how the company sees the Indonesian market and what strategy the company has to compete in the
Indonesian market. Below are excerpts from the interview.

How do you see the future of the Indonesian car market?

First, I am very much optimistic about the Indonesian market. In the Indonesian car market, Japanese brands have between 92 percent and 93 percent market share, while in Japan they only have around 80 percent market share. It means that the Japanese market is even bigger here in Indonesia than in Japan itself, interestingly.

In Japan, people prefer small cars, with engines of less than 1,000cc. Most of them are around 600cc. In Japan, many middle and lower-middle class people buy small cars, but here the rich people prefer to buy large cars. With an increase in the number of rich people here, the market potential for larger cars is growing. The growth will also
benefit Mazda.

Compared to the big players, yes, we are small. We are not like Toyota, or Nissan but we offer a unique
experience to our customers.

First is the design of the car [All New Mazda6] the Kodo design, embodying the soul of motion, or the movement of an animal and the second is the SkyActiv technology that reflects Indonesian customers' preferences and gives them advantages.

So, what is your main agenda for the coming years ?

Our aim is to increase market share. It means that we need to expand our sales higher than the market increase. In fact we increased our market share last year to 1.1 percent from 0.9 percent in the year earlier. This year we aim to sell 16,000 units or 1.3 percent of market share. It is our challenge. We will continuously make products that meet Indonesian customers' demand and have a good sales network.

We will expand our number of dealers and outlets across the country, not only the facilities but also services. All dealers have to meet customers' demands and satisfy them 100 percent. I want our customers to say 'wow, excellent' for our services, not 'good' or 'very good', I only expect the word excellent. To me, this is not only about numbers because quality is very important. Now we have 37 dealers nationwide and this year we plan to make it 44.

In regard to LCGC, we are not [focusing on] low cost green cars, that's not our priority. But as you can see we produce fuel-efficient cars.

How are you responding to the Indonesian government's plan to give a tax reduction for automobile manufacturers who produce LCGC?

No, we are not affected by that regulation as we don't have a manufacturer here in Indonesia.

Indonesia is currently the second largest market for Mazda after Thailand within the ASEAN region. Do you think Indonesia will soon become the first?

Well, if I am on the streets here in Indonesia, I remember the atmosphere I experienced 30 or 40 years ago when I was a child in Japan. At that time, Japan was in the process of developing from a poor to a rich country, it was neither poor nor rich, it was in between. Of course, there are still some poor areas [in Indonesia] as well as in Japan.

The shape of the area [Indonesian poor areas] might be different but I feel that the atmosphere is similar to what I felt when I was a child in Japan. From my point of view, in the future Indonesia will become number one. It will exceed Thailand for sure. We have a possibility in Indonesia to exceed Thailand. Indonesia's GDP (gross domestic product) will grow by 6 to 7 percent. In this way, Indonesia is following Japan exactly. Japan took 30 to 40 years to grow. Indonesia has just started so maybe it will take another 10 to 20 years for Indonesia to grow and for sure Indonesia will change drastically [becoming a developed country].

Our annual sales last year hit 1.2 million units worldwide in which the US market became the largest market followed by Europe, China and Japan. Indonesia contributed 1 percent of our global sales or 12,000 units and Thailand contributed around 75,000 units. It means that we still have plenty of room to grow here in Indonesia.

Having seen the potential in Indonesia, why don't you open an assembling factory here instead of the one in Malaysia?

Yes, of course we are interested in building a factory in Indonesia, but we don't have any plan at the moment. No one knows when it will be, I hope you will hear the good news.

In Malaysia, we are assembling Mazda CX-5 and Mazda3 but only for domestic consumption in Malaysia. We built a joint-venture with Berjaya Corporation Berhard last September. In Malaysia we need to have an assembling factory considering that it is very expensive [the export tax]. It is almost impossible to export to Malaysia because the tax is very high, whereas in Indonesia it is much cheaper especially with the existence of the economic partnership agreement [EPA] [between Japan and Indonesia]. In Malaysia we have that tariff barrier, so it is still very costly. However, for further growth in the Malaysian market we have to assemble cars in Malaysia.