ID :
168320
Tue, 03/15/2011 - 11:15
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Thailand confident to achieve automobile production target despite Japan’s disaster

BANGKOK, March 15 (TNA) - Despite damages at auto part plants in Japan, the Thailand Automotive Institute is confident that Thailand will meet its target of producing 600,000 passenger cars this year because the damaged plants supplied a small proportion of auto parts to Thailand.

Wallop Tiasiri, director of the Thailand Automotive Institute, does not think that the automotive industry of Thailand will be stalled although it depends on the import of some important items of auto parts from Japan. He said that the number of the auto part plants that were damaged or stalled due to the tsunami was small and most auto part plants still operated.

Most plants relating to the automotive industry are located in the central part of Japan including Nagoya and Toyota City which are south of Tokyo. Therefore, there are limited impacts on Japan’s automobile production bases in Thailand.

The import of some items of auto parts takes seven days by sea and this may cause existing stocks of auto parts to remain for only about 15 days. However, import by air is also possible to prevent a shortage. Therefore, the production of passenger cars in Thailand will not be stalled.

This year Thailand plans to produce about 600,000 passenger cars including eco-cars of Honda, the production of which will start within this month, as well as eco-cars of Nissan.

The production of one-ton pick-up trucks remains intact because it depends mainly on locally made parts. The pick-up truck production is expected at 1.4 million units this year. (TNA)

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