A national car for Cambodia

**donbuggy** · September 19th, 2012 12:03 AM

Monday, 17 September 2012
May Kunmakara

UK-based BIW automotive company on Friday signed a US$2 billion join venture investment with ACICA Automotive (Cambodia) to build a factory in Preah Sihanouk province for a Cambodian-made vehicle within the next three years.

The agreement was made between BIW’s director Robin Bowyer and ACICA’s Group Chairman Al Rumny, and is aimed at producing a low-cost car with the capacity of around 300,000 units per year for sale domestically, within ASEAN and globally.

The project entails a huge capital investment, with $450 million spent on building a new power station to supply the factory. An additional $1 billion will be spent on construction of a new township, infrastructure, fresh water and water treatment facilities while the remaining amount will be used for the car project, according to Al Rumny.

“The experts from the UK will bring the latest technology to produce the car here. We [ACICA] are committed to producing our car by 2015-2016 so that we will see our own home-made car within ASEAN, as well as the globe.

“By 2015-2016, we commit that Cambodia will have a Cambodian national car which represents the country, like Malaysia or others have. But the difference to Malaysia is that we will produce all parts, such as the body and engine, by ourselves. We don’t buy from other companies. It means that everything is made in Cambodia,” Al Rumny said.

BIW

The modular nature of the vehicle allows for a low cost, multi-purpose vehicle, whether it be for commercial or personal use BIW are able to deliver.

Naiwan na ang Pilipinas.

**isa1023** · September 19th, 2012 12:11 AM

Hindi naman siguro sir.

SG, HK among others don't have their own national car manufacturers as well.

Tsaka Anfra-style lang naman yata yung gagawin nila.

**uls** · September 19th, 2012 12:16 AM

hey jpdm, nasaan na yung pinoy car?

hehehe

**niky** · September 19th, 2012 12:11 PM

Didn't they learn from the Malaysian experiment?

As long as you build your car with Japanese parts, people will love them.

But when you start building them with local parts, then you run into problems with supplier quality and parts quality. People are more likely to buy a "Cambodian" car with a "Japanese" engine, but a "Cambodian" car with a "Cambodian" engine designed from the ground up in Cambodia? Death sentence.

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That is likely to be $2b down the drain. They're using only $550m on the plant, tooling and engineering? That's nowhere near enough.

**jpdm** · April 9th, 2013 10:22 PM

Ambitious Cambodian dream. Laudable but not plausible. Tulad ng dream ko na Pinoy car.

. Tayo nga medyo malaki konti auto market sa Cambodia, 55% ng auto market CBU. Malabo yan tulad ng pangarap ko na Pinoy car.hehe..

National car nga ng Indonesia na "Timor" di na tuloy e. Ang laki market ng Indonesia. Second na ang Indonesia sa Thailand at 1 million vehciles produced in 2012. Philippines 70k locally assembled.