Perodua aims to export to S. Africa in 2 years

Perodua hopes its plan to export its vehicles to South Africa will become a reality in the next one or two years, Managing Director Datuk Aminar Rashid said today.

Perodua, through Daihatsu, is currently in preliminary discussions with certain parties in South Africa for that purpose, he said.

“We would love to go to South Africa but it is not finalised yet. We are in preliminary talks via Daihatsu on various issues like the models to be exported and whether it will be under Perodua brand or Daihatsu brand.

"If it’s under Perodua, there are a lot to be done such as branding and identification of distributors. If we export under Daihatsu brand, we’ll just ride through the existing network.

“Hopefully, it will become a reality in the next one or two years, it’s within our five-year roadmap,” he said in an interview.

Under the roadmap, Perodua aims to export between 20,000 and 25,000 vehicles by 2015, he said.

In meeting the target, Aminar said Perodua planned to increase its export to the countries it was currently exporting and also expand its export market to other right-hand-drive countries.

While focusing on the right-hand-drive countries, he said Perodua would also venture into left-hand-drive nations within Asia, including Vietnam, Cambodia and Middle East countries.

“Our focus is the right-hand-drive and existing countries where we are now.

"We want to manage the business, the after-sales business, image and branding.

"The left-hand-drive countries will come after that,” he said.

Aminar stressed that the main criterion was that the cars should be manufactured at its plants in Malaysia.

"The vehicles must have the world standard. We also want to see the standards in these countries are the same as Malaysia's and therefore, easy to export,” he said.

Aminar said the export number for this year would be 8,000 units of which 4,000 units are exported to Sri Lanka.

Perodua exports under its Perodua brand to seven countries, namely Sri Lanka, United Kingdom, Singapore, Brunei, Mauritius, Fiji and Nepal.

A total of 650 units are currently exported to the UK while the rest to the other five countries.

The company exports 3,000 units to Indonesia under the Daihatsu brand.

He also said Perodua’s move to launch the new 1.3 litre Myvi in Mauritius and Sri Lanka soon was in sync with its plan to sell bigger engine models in the two countries.

"We want to test the market. Our Viva, with 4,000 units in Sri Lanka, is quite a big market. We want to have a slightly bigger engine,” he said.

Aminar said Perodua was currently working on its export number for next year.

“We've not done the (export) number for next year due to the uncertainties in the global economy. We’ll be crunching a lot of numbers with our distributors in the next three to four months and will announce the number by year-end or early next year,” he said.

Aminar said Perodua also exported engine components to Pakistan, Indonesia and Japan and expected RM45 million revenue for this year from these components. -- Bernama