Aerial view of Thilawa, where Toyota will open its first plant in Myanmar. (Image via: The Nation)

Toyota to Build Factory in Myanmar

YANGON - The automobile factory expands its wings. Toyota Motor, Japanese automobile company based in the same location as its name in Toyota, Aichi, decided to open an additional factory in South East Asian country Myanmar.

The new plant is going to be built in Thilawa Special Economic Region, Yangon. The region was green, opened in 2015. The announcement will be made by the end of May, and the construction will follow sooner or later. The plant deals with assembling pickup trucks from parts that will come from its neighboring countries.

Toyota saw Myanmar as a prospective country with expected annual growth from 6 to 7%. This might be caused by Myanmar’s government transition to civilian government in 2011 that led to lifting of sanction by US and EU. Moreover, Myanmar government is quite picky in its taxation. In terms of domestic manufacturing, the tax is much smaller than imported goods. Therefore, it is a win-win solution for Toyota.

Toyota Motor was not the first to enter Myanmar. Suzuki was. In fact, it has already established 2 factories to assemble compact cars. But wait, Toyota still was not the first, since Nissan and Ford also had already trodden their steps into Myanmar before.

In ASEAN, Toyota has already established its plants in 6 ASEAN countries: Thailand (the first), Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam, and Singapore. With Myanmar’s plant is on its way, that will indicate that Toyota just reached number 7 for its ASEAN domination.