In response to the Thailand government’s drive to promote the production of eco-friendly cars, Suzuki Motor has announced that it will begin construction of its plant in Rayong next week. This development further cements Thailand’s role as a Southeast Asia vehicle-manufacturing hub. Suzuki plans to invest JPY20 billion (US$225 million) for the construction of the plant that will have facilities for pressing, welding, painting, assembly and engine production. Continued after the jump!

Production of the 1.3-liter cars is scheduled to start in March 2012. Suzuki expects that by the end of 2012, a total of 10,000 units of the new V-platform small car (known as the Micra in Europe and the March in Japan) will be rolled out.

And it isn’t just Suzuki that has heeded Thailand’s call. Toyota has announced plans to start petrol-electric hybrid production in Thailand. Last July, Ford and Mazda opened a $537 million auto plant in Rayong, to produce the Fiesta and Mazda 2 through their AutoAlliance Thailand venture.

The facility has the capacity to produce 100,000 cars each year. It joins a 175,000-unit-capacity pick-up truck plant already operated by AutoAlliance in Thailand.

[via just-auto]

Tags: car news, Suzuki, suzuki eco-car, suzuki eco-car production, suzuki news

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 at 9:06 pm and is filed under 2009, 4wheels News, Asia, Automakers, Categories, Economy cars, Suzuki, Year, Zone. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.