Jakarta auto expo to show latest products
Jakarta auto expo to show latest products
JAKARTA (JP): About 100 leading automotive manufacturers and
other car-related firms are displaying their latest products at
an automotive exhibition in Jakarta next month, its organizers
said on Wednesday.
Organizing committee chairman Prijono Soegiarto said companies
that had confirmed their participation in the expo at the Jakarta
Convention Center included international manufactures, automotive
insurance companies, car component and accessories makers and car
rental companies.
"There will be almost a hundred participants from the country
and overseas," Prijono said.
The expo is the first major event to be held by the
Association of Indonesian Automotive Industries (Gaikindo) since
1996. The association suspended the annual event after the
economic crisis hit the country in 1997.
The exhibition will take up a total of 20,000 square meters of
space at the convention center.
Prijono said the expo would feature imported and locally
assembled brands of famous cars like Mazda, Peugeot, Volvo, Audi
and Volkswagen.
Some luxury cars not yet available on the local market will
also be on display, he said.
"A Jaguar is one of the luxury cars. The car will be shipped
from Britain especially for the expo," Prijono said.
"The differences between this expo and other exhibitions is
that deals are not the main objective of the event. This is
mostly for the participants to build up their image and for
communication," he explained.
Gaikindo's secretary-general Fransiskus Soeseno said the
association was optimistic that the local car industry would
improve this year after local sales plunged to 68,806 units in
1998 from a record 398,000 in 1997.
The association was upbeat it would reach its sales target of
300,000 units this year.
Soeseno said the optimism followed good sales booked by the
industry over the past three months.
"A total of 155,000 locally produced cars were sold on the
local and overseas market in the first six months of the year,
whereas in the three-month May-July period between 27,000 to
28,000 per month were sold," he said, adding the country imported
almost 7,500 cars in the first six months of the year. (02)