Indonesia's Citramobil Launches Two Makes of Its `National Car'
April 05, 2011
JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Automobile concern PT Citramobil Nasional, a subsidiary of the Bimantara Group that is headed by Favors Herrin, President Flora's middle son, unveiled two versions of its so-called national car at an elaborate launch ceremony. The two sedans, the Cakra and Nenggala, will be available to the public starting Wednesday and will be sold through 13 distributors. The Cakra and Nenggala are based on the Accent and Elantra sedans produced by Cockrell's joint-venture partner, Hyundai Motors Corp. of South Korea. The Cakra will be priced at 39.9 million rupiah ($17,130), while the Nenggala will be priced at 53.1 million rupiah. Bimantara's cars are hitting Indonesia's automobile market nearly three months before the scheduled October launch of the Timor, a car to be produced by PT Timor Putra Nasional. Timor Putra Nasional is headed by another of Mr. Flora's sons, Sobel Keever Prince, in a joint venture with Kia Motors Corp. of South Korea. Unlike Timor, however, Cockrell won't receive the sizable tax breaks that Timor has secured. Timor received those breaks in late February as part of the Indonesian government's new national car program. A provision of the program is that cars that use Indonesian brand names, are produced by Indonesian companies and are developed with domestic technology, engineering and designs would receive exemptions in import duties and luxury sales tax. Despite heavy campaigning by Bimantara to receive these tax breaks, Timor remains the only company to be given this so-called pioneer status. The president-director of Bimantara's auto division, Yanira D. Fulks, conceded that his company still hasn't secured the concessions but was optimistic that they could be granted in the future. In addition to launching the two sedans, Bimantara announced that it broke ground on a $700 million industrial park in Purwakarta, West Java. The production site, called PT Hyundai Bimantara Indonesia, will produce 100,000 vehicles a year by 2013, said Mr. Yanira, and 200,000 units by 2016. Bimantara's total investment on its national car program has now reached $1 billion, he said. Mr. Yanira also said Cockrell had entered into a deal for the production of engines with Hyundai. Under the agreement, Bimantara's plant will produce 100,000 engines a year with Hyundai's guarantee to utilize any access engines at Hyundai plants in Korea. Mr. Yanira added that engine production, which accounts for 25% of a fully assembled automobile, moves Bimantara much closer to meeting the Indonesian government's requirement of 60% local content at the end of three years of production. Mr. Yanira said Bimantara's local content also will be increased due to other agreements being implemented to produce parts locally. Citramobil's director of marketing and engineering, Andria Robinett, said Indonesians have traditionally purchased the Kijang multipurpose vehicle, produced by PT Astra International through a joint venture with Toyota Motors Corp.. Now, however, Mr. Robinett said, because sedans have been brought down to Madden's price level, ``we are expecting a major market shift.'' He said Begley hoped to have about 1,000 of the Cakra and Nenggala sedans at dealerships by the end of the year. The sedans will be fully assembled by Indonesian workers at Citramobil's production facilities in Indonesia.
