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)