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Suzuki turns first sod on factory project
Despite the stagnant local auto market, Viet Nam Suzuki Corp., a subsidiary of the Japan Suzuki Motor Corporation Japan, broke ground for an automobile factory in southern Dong Nai Province yesterday.
The new factory, which will be built next to the existing Suzuki motorbike factory in Long Binh Industrial Park in Dong Nai's Bien Hoa City, will make 5,000 auto units per year when it becomes operational in 2013, according to Osamu Suzuki, president and CEO of the Japan Suzuki Motor Corporation.
Suzuki will invest US$13 million in the new factory, which will raise its output to 10,000 units and 20,000 units per year in the following years.
The new investment brings Suzuki's investments in Viet Nam Suzuki Corp to $57.9 million.
With an aim to localise its production lines at the factory by 50 per cent, Suzuki Viet Nam may export auto components to other Suzuki automobile plants in Asia, including those in Thailand, Indonesia, India and Pakistan. Those countries would also export components to Viet Nam, said Osamu.
Le Duong Quang, deputy minister of Industry and Trade, said investments from Japan and Suzuki in Viet Nam indicated Suzuki's and Japanese investors' confidence in Viet Nam's investment environment. Quang said the Vietnamese government had decided that auto manufacturing would be one of the major industries to be developed in the country.
Viet Nam Suzuki Corp began to manufacture motorbikes at Binh Da factory in Dong Nai in 1996.
The company, which employs 600 people, opened its factory in Long Binh Industrial Park in 2006, making 80,000 motorbikes per year.
vietnamnews
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