JAKARTA (Indonesia Today) – ??The Association of Indonesia Automotive Industry (Gaikindo) says Indonesia exported 107,932 units of built-up car during January-July, 2012, jumped 67.2% from the same period of 2011, Antaranews.com reported.

Johnny Darmawan, chairman of Gaikindo, Indonesia also exported 61,095 sets of unravel cars (exported in pieces) in the period, increased 31% from the same period of last year.

As of July 2012, the country’s car production also rose 33.5% while car sales increased 25.9% to 637,000 units.

“If noting will trouble, volume of domestic car sales might reach one million units ??this year,” Johnny said.

Indonesia is now the biggest country for automotive industry in South East Asia with total sales of 894,000 units of cars last year, representing 34.7% of market share.

Currently Indonesia is competing with Thailand and Malaysia as big market for car and as the basis of production of world automotive players.

Now, 5 automotive companies that also member of Gaikindo have started to expand their car factory and opt Indonesia as the basis for production in the Asia region.

Mitsubishi also plans to expand its production capacity to 150,000 units in 2015 from current 60,000 units.

Toyota and Daihatsu also plan to expand their production capacity to more than 200-300 thousands units per year. Currently Toyota produces around 110,000 units of cars per year.

Along with the expansion of production capacity, Toyota plans to launch 4 new model of cars within 4 years. (hans@theindonesiatoday.com)