Mitsubishi Motors Thailand will build a THB500m (EUR11m) proving ground to help develop products for ASEAN markets.
It will be Mitsubishi Motors’ first such facility outside Japan, located in Nhongkham Amphur, Chonburi (an eastern province of Thailand), just 26km (about 18 miles) from the automaker’s factories in Laemchabung Industrial Estate.
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Construction will be completed by the first quarter of 2015 and the facility will employ around 100 local and Japanese workers.
MMC sees the 600m population ASEAN region (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, The Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam) as a “primary strategic market” currently worth around 250,000 units a fiscal year.
Adding local R&D facilities to five assembly plants in the region has three objectives: further quality improvement of vehicles produced in Thailand by swiftly reflecting the needs of the various ASEAN markets; engineering support of future product development of Thai-built models and, specially, local procurement in Thailand; investigating market trends, design and technology requirements in the vast ASEAN region, including benchmarking and testing.
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