Isuzu to manufacture trucks in Saudi Arabia

The Isuzu truck family

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Isuzu Motors has annouced it is setting up a truck assembly plant in Saudi Arabia, its first plant in the Middle East.

In a deal with the KSA government, Isuzu will establish a business entity in the Kingdom with the plant being built in the Industrial City of Dammam II. The company plans to start manufacturing its F-series medium-sized trucks by the end of 2012.

Future plans include expanding the site, located in an industrial park in the eastern part of the country, to handle local assembly of light-duty Elf trucks produced at the company's plant in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture as well as heavy duty models.

The company said that it will eventually expand production from 600 to around 25,000 units per year.

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The announcement comes three months after Isuzu president Susumu Hosoi had told investors that the company was freezing spending plans to assemble trucks in the Kingdom as well as produce trucks at its plant in Russia because of an unclear outlook “for sales, the market and foreign exchange rates”.

This decision has now been clearly reversed and speaking at the official signing with Saudi government officials, Hosoi proudly announced that: "the new assembly operations will contribute to the development of the industry and economy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia."

Earlier this week, Isuzu also revealed that it was entering into a joint partnership with Sumitomo to make trucks with 12-ton payloads in India.