Honda to Manufacture Cars in Vietnam Next Year

Honda to Manufacture Cars in Vietnam Next Year

Honda Motor Co. plans to assemble automobiles in Vietnam by mid-2006 to meet rapidly growing demand in the country, and will invest USUS$60 million by 2010, a Honda Vietnam senior official revealed yesterday in Hanoi.

The Honda auto assembly plant, located in the northern Vinh Phuc province, will be capable of assembling 10,000 cars a year.

"The Honda Civic will be the first model to be produced in Vietnam as this model is already very popular in Asia," the official said.

This will be the fifth Honda automobile plant in Southeast Asia after Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, he said.

The factory will create about 1,200 jobs including suppliers and dealers.

Honda will become the twelfth automaker in Vietnam, along with long-standing rivals like Ford, GM-Daewoo, Toyota, BMW, Mitsubishi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz who sold over 40,000 automobiles last year.

Honda Vietnam Co Ltd (HVN), Honda's motorcycle production and sales joint venture in Vietnam, will sell cars and promote the establishment of an automobile dealer network in the country.

HVN began manufacturing motorcycles here in late 1997 and sold 1.84 million as of late 2004, including over 500,000 units last year.

P.V