Hino will soon begin assembling trucks in Colombia in a $US20m project with Mitsui and Colombia’s Praco-Didacol Group.
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It’s been almost 40 years since a completely new assembly plant – Sofasa’s – was opened in Colombia.
Hino owner Toyota has selected Cota, 10 minutes from El Dorado Bogota airport, for its new truck plant.
Praco-Didacol Group is the Colombian distributor of Daihatsu, Peugeot, Hino and Komatsu, plus other brands of transportation and construction equipment.
The new plant, the first for Hino in Latin America, will mainly supply the local market. The truckmaker will soon also begin assembly in Mexico to supply the NAFTA region.
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By GlobalDataLast February, Hino Motors Manufacturing de Colombia (HMMC) began building a 15,000 sq m plant with installed capacity of 8,000 units a year on a 50,000 sq m site. It has also created a company called Servikom that will supply HMMC with axles and steering systems.
From its new plant with brand-new equipment, HHMC plans to export two thirds of production to all countries in the Andean region.
The plant will assemble the FC4J, GD1J and FG1J trucks with respective weight capacities of 7, 10 and 11 tons.
The FG1J will be offered in dump truck and mini truck versions; the GH1J is designed for Ecuador and can haul 12 tons.
Hino chose Bogota and Colombia for the plant due to the concentration of original equipment suppliers (initial local content will be about 22%) and steady growth in the commercial vehicle segment despite recent restrictive measures. It also helped that Hino is the leading truck brand in Ecuador, though the automotive market there is stagnant.
Many of the 170 jobs at the new Hino plant have been filled by experienced workers axed from other assembly factories, due to the recent market slowdown.
New infrastructure includes two waste water treatment systems (industrial and domestic).
The plant begins trial operations in two weeks and will be officially inaugurated in December.
Juan Vargas
