Honda plans to strengthen its foothold in Indonesia through the erection of new automobile production plant at the Karawang Industrial Park in a suburb of Jakarta. The Japanese carmaker held a groundbreaking ceremony on Monday to mark the start of the construction work at the facility, which was attended by high-ranking officials from the Ministry of Industry of Indonesia, as well as Takanobu Ito, Honda Motor Co. president and CEO. "Our operations in Indonesia will take the next step to become more autonomous and play an even more important role for Honda in this region," said Hiroshi Kobayashi, Managing Officer and Chief Operating Officer for Regional Operations of Honda in his speech at the event.
"Honda will not only build automobiles in Indonesia to meet the needs of customers here. Indonesia will serve as a key export base for Honda - for both completed vehicles and components."
The new Indonesian plant represents an investment of approximately 3.1 trillion Indonesian rupiah (about US$326 million) for Honda and will have an estimated annual production capacity of 120,000 units. Together with Honda's current volume of 60,000 units, the company's total annual production capacity in the country will be 180,000 units.
Honda will begin manufacturing the new Brio hatchback, which was developed especially for Asian markets, at the new plant in 2014. In addition, Honda revealed that it is also planning to build a new MPV (Multi-Purpose Vehicle) model based on the Brio at the new plant.
