DaimlerChrysler ups production

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

DaimlerChrysler, the producer of Mercedes-Benz passenger and commercial vehicles, plans to increase production at its Indonesian assembly plant next year by almost 50 percent to cope with growing demand.

Rudi Borgenheimar, the president director of PT DaimlerChrysler Indonesia, said Thursday that total production at the company's assembly plant in Bogor, West Java, would reach 1,700 units this year.

He said that with higher demand in both the luxury car and truck markets, the company planned to increase production by 47 percent to about 2,500 units next year

"Next year, we will assemble 500 buses, 1,200 C-class series cars, 550 E-class series cars, and 200 S-class series cars," Borgenheimar said after the launching of the W204, the latest variant in the C-class series, at the Bogor plant.

However, he said the company had no plans as yet to increase the plant's production capacity as the existing capacity was still adequate to meet demand.

Indonesia is the company's fourth largest market in Southeast Asia after Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia.

At present, the Wanaherang, Bogor, plant, the company's only production line in Southeast Asia, has a capacity to assemble 40,000 vehicles a year.

As of the end of October, DaimlerChrysler had sold 1,741 sedans and trucks, representing an increase of almost 200 percent compared with the 914 vehicles sold in 2006.

Of these, 587 were C-class sedans, while 289 were E-class sedans.

The country's total sales of private and commercial vehicles amounted to 349,489 during the January-October period, almost 10 percent more than the 318,904 vehicles sold in 2006.

Borgenheimar also said that DaimlerChrysler was planning to change its name to PT Mercedes-Benz Indonesia next month. (adt)