Nissan makes Thailand global hub for Navara

Thai-made Nissan pick-ups awaiting shipment

Nissan Navara

Thailand is now the global supply hub for the Nissan Navara which is manufactured at the factory of  Siam Nissan Automobile (SNA). With this move by Nissan, it means that all the major Japanese players now use the country as their main manufacturing point for pick-ups.
 
"With a 55-year history in Thailand, Siam Nissan will be taking the next step in its growth evolution as it becomes the largest central hub in Southeast Asia for Nissan Motor Co," said Thierry Viadieu, President of SN. "We are now ready to manufacture and export a wide range of high quality versions of this globally successful product to over 120 countries worldwide.”

SNA’s Bangna Trad plant is Nissan's largest facility in the ASEAN as well as the third largest in Asia, after Japan and China. Located just outside Bangkok, the world-class facility is a key component of Nissan's business strategy in the region and now globally.

The facility applies the Nissan Production Way and the Nissan Integrated Manufacturing System standards to the manufacturing of pickup trucks and also passenger car models such as the Teana and Tiida (Latio). The plant's development into a production and export hub is the result of investments announced in 2005 for expanded production capacity, equipment upgrades and other improvements. Current annual production capacity for the plant is 140,000 units. By 2010, Navara exports are expected to exceed 45,000 units.

The Eastern Seaboard at Rayong became a 'Detroit of the East' as a few global manufacturers set up factories there to make pick-ups

The choice of Thailand by Nissan, Toyota, Mazda, Ford, Mitsubishi, Isuzu and GM as global manufacturing hubs for their pick-up models is not coincidental. In the early 1990s, the Thai government embarked on a project with that goal and offered attractive incentives to manufacturers to get them to set up or expand their factories and export from Thailand. It helped, of course, that Thailand was primarily a pick-up market - the second largest in the world, after the USA - so there was a strong domestic market to count on. This was important too because manufacturers do not go to a country and set up a plant just for exports (though some ministers in other countries seem to think they will do that) as they look first at the host country's market and whether there will be sufficient demand.

Having now made Thailand the pick-up manufacturing hub of the world, the government is now trying to interest manufacturers in making the country a hub for minicars. This has attracted some interest but it remains to be seen whether the manufacturers will respond as enthusiastically as they did before because minicars are not necessarily popular there (though this may change quickly if fuel prices keep rising).