Thailand expects to produce over 2 million cars and trucks this year

By BERNAMA | 25 March 2015


BANGKOK: Thailand expects to produce 2.15 million cars and trucks this year, an increase of 14.36% compared to last year, said Thailand Automotive Industry Club.

Its deputy chairman, Surapong Paisitpatanapong, said the production included 1.2 million units for export, an increase of 6.94% from last year's 1.12 million units.

"The production target for domestic market is 950,000 units, up 25.35% from last year's 757,853 units," he said at a monthly press conference here on Tuesday.

He said car and truck production in February rose by 2.79% year-on-year (yoy) to 178,351 units, comprising export at 110,922 units (up 20.97% yoy) and for domestic market at 67,429 units (down 17.58% yoy).

The production for the period January-February was 344,751 units, a 2.56% increased compared with the same period of last year, he said.

"For the period, production for export was 217,200 units, an increase of 17.36%, while production for domestic market dropped 15.57% to  127,551 units," he said.

Surapong said the sale volume for export expanded by 11.32% to 108,173 units in February, mainly due to the recovery in the Australian market and increased export of eco-cars to Europe.

Also, export to the markets in the northern, central and southern America  expanded, he said.

In terms of value, export in February rose by 3.21% to 47.558 billion baht, but when included engine, car and spare parts the export contracted by 0.31% to 67.231 billion baht compared with the same month last year.

In the January-February period, export stood at 200,613 units, an increase of 12.58% and its value rose 6.25% to 88.10 billion baht, compared with the same period of last year, he said.

Surapong said the total export value including engine, car parts, spare parts increased by 2.48% to 126.513 billion baht.

In the domestic, the sale volume in February dropped 10.8% year- on-year to 63,946 units, attributed mainly due to a lack of recovery in Thailand's economy, lower prices of agricultural products, slowdown in private and government investment, lower than targetted government budget disbursement as well as the strict requirements for loan from the financial institutions.

Overall, the sale for the January-February in the domestic market fell 11.8% 11.8% year-on-year to 123,669 units.

Keywords