Volkswagen Group is expected to announce later this year an initial 200 million euro (USD268.53 million) investment to build an automobile plant in Indonesia, an Indonesian government minister has said in an interview. Industry minister Mohamad Hidayat said the carmaker would build the car plant in Cikampek, West Java. He did not say how many vehicles the plant would produce.
“They (Volkswagen Group) will announce the plan in November or December,” he told reporters after a meeting with company officials in Jakarta. He said the 200 million euro investment was a personal estimate and wasn’t a number officially from the company. Volkswagen is keen to expand its small presence in South East Asian markets as it strives to become the best-selling global automaker. Malaysia was in the lead for a few years to have a full production facility to cater to the growing regional markets, but that hope has now been confirmed not to happen. VW is targeting annual vehicle sales of 10 million in 2018. In 2012, the group sold 9.07 million units, behind General Motors with 9.29 million sales and global No. 1 Toyota, which sold 9.75 million vehicles.
