Thai-made Mitsubishi Mirage to be sold globally

Mitsubishi Motors Corp (MMC) president Osamu Masuko said on Tuesday that the firm would soon start manufacturing the Mitsubishi Mirage at a factory in Thailand to meet both local and global demand.

Calling the Mirage a 'global compact car', Mr Masuko said during a Bangkok press conference the Mirage would fit the needs of both mature and emerging markets.

Will Thailand enter the TOP 10 in 2012?

Sounds ambitious…but if you lonk at the 2011 statistics, you will see that the 2012 projected production number of 2,100,000 vehicles will bring us about almost right there – or at least very very close. My personal opinion: We will make it by 2013.

February vehicle production improves

Total vehicle output increased by 11.6% year-on-year last month to 168,221 units after all carmakers except Honda recovered from the floods of 2011.

Malaysia: Volkswagen, DRB-HICOM officially start vehicle output

Volkswagen Group Malaysia and local partner DRB-HICOM have officially started assembly of the Passat from SKD kits in Pekan.

The partners also laid the foundation stone for a new production hall at the plant site. In a second stage, the Jetta and Polo will be produced - from CKD kits.

Bangkok Post: The big leap

Interesting feature about Continental Thailand and portrait of Dirk Janovsky, MD:

"Our biggest automobile client is the AutoAlliance Thailand plant. Continental components are used in the Ford Ranger, Mazda BT-50, Nissan March and Ford Fiesta,"said Janovsky, who holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the  Institute of Production Technology and Machine Tools, the University of Darmstadt.

Janovsky will be overseeing an additional 600 million baht investment at the plant which he described as "a higher depth of manufacturing and a machining line for the production of injector bodies", which will be channelled to export markets such as India, Europe and  Argentina.

Continental Automotive's current localisation of sourced components is 40%, a rate which is targeted to increase to about 60% by 2016.

Anthony Naftes Presentations….

Thanks to Anthony Nafte for providing his presentation and an additional publication for download to our AFG Members:

2Q12 Eye on Asian Economies which includes his Myanmar report
The Myanmar-Thai Nexus Presentation

Enjoy!

Myanmar Presentation by UMFCC

All you want to know about Myanmar – a very nice presentation by the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Colmerce….

Click here to download (8 MB PDF - 69 Pages about economy and investment / business opportunity).

Bangkok Post: Thai Summit capacity gets B9bn turbo boost

Thai Summit Group, one of the country's largest auto parts makers, will spend 9 billion baht to expand capacity at home and abroad this year in a bid to cash in on steady growth in vehicle production in Southeast Asia and China.

With a presence in China, Japan, the US and India, as well as Thailand, Thai Summit expects revenue of 60 billion baht this year, up by 20% from last year.

Auto industry staging major rebound

The local automobile industry is expected to experience a boom this year, said Piangjai Kaewsuwan, president of the Thai Automotive Industry Association.

Record output at or above 2.1 million units in 2012 is anticipated.

In the domestic market, sales of 1.1 million vehicles are expected, while exports of Thai-built vehicles are seen hitting 1 million units.