JAPAN'S Hino Motors Ltd says it has teamed up with China's Guangzhou Automobile Group Co to set up a truck venture in China, aiming to meet surging demand for commercial vehicles brought by a construction boom.
The equally owned Guangqi Hino Automobile Manufacturing Co will have a capital of 1.5 billion yuan (US$202 million), Hino, the commercial vehicle manufacture under Toyota Motor Corp, said on its Website yesterday.
A new factory in Conghua, Guangzhou city, is scheduled to commence production in mid-2009 when the staff will reach around 900. The truck maker didn't disclose production capacity.
The move marks a further step for Tokyo-based Hino, the main player in Japan's heavy and medium-duty truck market, to localize production in China, the world's second-largest auto market. It now exports about 1,500 heavy-duty trucks to China per year.
Overseas car makers are strengthening cooperation with Chinese car makers as well as adding capacity in the commercial vehicle segment amid surging sales.
Sales of commercial vehicles expanded 24.1 percent to hit a record high of 2.88 million units for the first 11 months of this year, outpacing the 23-percent growth of the total auto industry during the same period, according to China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.
Sales for the first 10 months this year outpaced total sales for 2006.
Guangzhou Auto, China's sixth-largest auto group, also partnered with Japan's Toyota and Honda Motor Corp, to make cars, trucks and engines.