Thailand Automotive Institute tones down car production target for 2015

BANGKOK, 27 May 2015 (NNT) – Reduced purchasing power has prompted Thailand Automotive Institute (TAI) to lower its car production target for 2015 to 2 million units, albeit expressing confidence that the country will become the 8th largest automobile manufacturer in the world within 5 years.

Vichai Jirathiyut, president of the TAI, said on Tuesday that the production target had been lowered to 2 million units from the previous target of 2.15 million units. Of the new target figure, 1.2 million units are expected to be produced for export and the rest-- 800,000 units -- for sale locally.

According to Mr. Vichai, the Thai economy's slowdown and the low prices of agricultural products have diminished people's purchasing power. Nonetheless, the institute still maintains its expectation for Thailand to produce 3 million cars a year by the year 2019. Mr. Vichai indicated that the expected growth in the number of units manufactured would be driven by the production of energy-efficient eco-cars.

The TAI president also commented on the progress of the automobile testing complex planned by the government, saying that the Ministry of Industry had negotiated to use 4,000 rai of land under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment as the site for the complex. A more detailed plan for the site is expected to be drawn up within three months.


-- NNT 2015-05-27

Meanwhile, Indonesia, or is it Malaysia, has already overtaken Thailand in car & truck production.

the future is always brighter . Now be happy

They seemed to have toned down the color too. They use the Henry Ford color option: You can have you're model T in any color you want, as long as it's black.

Not much difference here in the LOS. White or some variation on silver. Bland, bland, bland.

Executive Director of Inter Media Consultant Chalatchai Papatpong attributed a decrease in auto sales to the drop to the recovering local economy, low agricultural export output and high household debt rate, which resulted in financial institutes tightening their loan policies and low spending from the household sector. 2015-05-12

Good luck selling those 800,000 units any time soon.

Some time ago Thailand introduced a car purchase scheme to boost car sales and hence production. That was a short term solution. It is plain to me that the manufacturing sector in general has been in decline since the minimum wage was raised to 300 TBht/day. To counter this the corporate profits could be reduced, although this would result in short term losses on the stock market, and the BoT could adjust the exchange rate to favour industrial exports............but this is Thailand..........

The 2016 figures for production will probably be even worse, as all the recent capex for new car plants in Mexico, China, and other countries come to fruition