Agrinas Boss Says Import of 105,000 Pick-up Trucks from India is Urgent, Why?
The decision to import commercial vehicles to support the operations of the Merah Putih Village/Urban Cooperative (KDKMP) has once again become a topic of discussion. The President Director of PT Agrinas Pangan Nusantara (Agrinas), Joao Angelo De Sousa Mota, affirmed that this step was taken due to urgent needs in the field, in line with the accelerated development of the cooperative.
According to Joao, thousands of cooperative units have been established and are ready to operate, thus requiring a rapid distribution fleet. He mentioned that physical construction is progressing rapidly.
“How urgent is it? Because to date, we have built 30,712 units. And as of today, 1,357 buildings have been completed, and we will soon start operating them, so it is urgent for us to supply them immediately,” said Joao in a statement to the media, quoted on Wednesday (25/2/2026).
To support the operations of 70,000 cooperatives, Agrinas decided to import 70,000 pick-up units from India, with 35,000 units each from Mahindra and Tata Motors, plus an additional 35,000 six-wheeled Tata Motors trucks. He argued that these needs must be met within a short period, while domestic production capacity is considered limited.
“For the 70,000 Merah Putih Cooperatives, we will supply pick-ups from Mahindra and Tata, 35,000 from Mahindra, and 35,000 from Tata. In principle, if we look at the roads in Indonesia, the challenges are quite significant,” said Joao.
He denied accusations that his company was not giving space to domestic automotive manufacturers. Several major manufacturers were reportedly invited to negotiate, including the Astra Group, Mitsubishi Fuso, Mitsubishi Motors, Hino, and Foton. However, not all agreements were reached due to limited capacity and pricing issues.
“From this point, the agreement reached between Agrinas and Isuzu is that they are able to supply 900 units,” he said.
According to him, this limited supply occurred because the cooperation with Isuzu was reached later, so the issue of the bodywork became an obstacle. He said that most local bodywork companies have already filled their orders from other brands.
“They can only supply 900 units because the deal with Isuzu happened later, so they could not get the bodywork supply. Because the local bodywork companies in Indonesia are all supplying other brands. So they are no longer able to supply because all the bodywork companies are fully booked by other brands,” he added.
For the truck segment, several domestic manufacturers are still involved. Mitsubishi Fuso, through Krama Yudha, supplies thousands of six-wheeled trucks according to production capacity until the end of the year. Hino and Foton are also included in the procurement scheme.
“Krama Yudha (Mitsubishi Fuso) offered six-wheeled trucks. Finally, Krama Yudha supplied 20,600 units for operations in the Merah Putih Cooperative, which is in accordance with their production capacity until the end of the year,” explained Joao.
“Hino Motor is able to produce 120 units per month or 400 units per 3 months. Then we gave Hino the opportunity to supply to us. After they lobbied the Japanese side, they were able to supply up to 10,000 units.”
“Then we also invited products from China, Foton. Foton supplies us with 13,500 Foton Auman,” he said.
Meanwhile, light pick-up models such as the Suzuki Carry and Daihatsu Gran Max are also said to have been invited to discuss. However, the annual production capacity, which is in the range of 100,000 to 120,000 units, is said to have been absorbed by the market, including for the Free Nutritious Food program and the needs of the agricultural sector.
“Currently, most of them are used by the Free Nutritious Food program. We also see that our agriculture is growing because of fertilizer subsidies, so many farmers are using the Carry and Gran Max to transport to the market.”