On January 24, 1998, Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. (YMC) received official approval from the Vietnamese government regarding an application to engage in the manufacture and sales of motorcycles in Vietnam and on February 2, the official documents of approval were delivered.
On July 9, 1996, YMC had signed an agreement with Vietnam Forest Corporation , or VINAFOR, (Representative: Le Ba; location: Hanoi), a company under the auspices of the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, VINAFOR's subsidiary, Co Do Mechanical Factory (Representative: Do Van Lo; Location: Hanoi) and Malaysia's Hong Leong Industries Berhad (Representative: Kwek Leng San; location: Kuala Lumpur) to form a joint venture company, and a formal application for license to conduct business in Vietnam was filed on October 25, 1996.
The new company, named "Yamaha Motor Vietnam Co., Ltd.", will be established in Soc Son Dist., 45 km north of Hanoi, with a starting capital of US$24.25 million (approx. 3.0 billion yen), with YMC investing 46%, VINAFOR 8%, Co Do Mechanical Factory 22% and 24% by Hong Leong Industries, Yamaha's Malaysian motorcycle manufacturing joint venture Hong Leong Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd.'s investment company.
At the time of the signing, the new company has 50 employees and a factory site of approximately 10 hectare, and plans call for operations to begin in the Summer of 1999. The production goal for the first year (1999) is 8,000 units of primarily 100 and 110 cc moped type motorcycles, with plans to increase production capacity to a level of 100,000 units by the year 2005.
In recent years, the promotion of economic reform policies and direct foreign investment have stimulated the Vietnamese economy, and its people have come to depend increasingly on motorcycles as a versatile form of transportation. The motorcycle market has been growing steadily along with the economy, with the 200,000 unit demand recorded in 1997 expected to reach 500,000 by the year 2000. Ever since the opening of our liaison office in Hanoi in January of 1994, YMC has been laying the groundwork for the establishment of a joint venture company in anticipation of the great market potential of Vietnambased on a policy of local production.
From here on, as operations begin at the new company, YMC will dedicateitself to the manufacture of high quality motorcycles that fit the needs of the Vietnamese market and can be marketed and supplied in a timely fashion according to the expanding demand of the market. |
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