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| | Huckabee, Japan execs to hold groundbreaking for truck parts plant
Tuesday, Jul 20, 2004 By Wesley Brown Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - Gov. Mike Huckabee and top executives for Japan's Hino Motors Ltd. will hold a groundbreaking ceremony Thursday for a new manufacturing plant that will make rear axle parts for Toyota trucks. The ceremony will be held at a 160-acre site in Marion, next to a 1,400-acre industrial super project locale that Arkansas unsuccessfully pitched to Toyota Motor Corp. more than a year ago. Neither Huckabee nor state economic development officials have offered any details of Hino's Arkansas investment or how many employees the company eventually will hire, although media reports have put the number between 400 and 2,000 new jobs. The governor will be joined at the event by Hino chairman Tadaaki Jagawa and Hino Motors Manufacturing USA Inc. president Kimio Watanabe. Also attending the ceremony will be Hideaki Otaka, the president of Toyota Motor North America Inc., and Atsushi Niimi, the president of Toyota Motor Manufacturing North America Inc. Hino first announced in May that it will build a new auto parts plant in the eastern Arkansas community. The city of Marion has already received $1.5 million in federal funds for water, sewer and road improvements at the site, where construction on the Hino plant is expected to begin immediately. Hino, which is 52 percent owned by Toyota Motor Corp., has held the top position in the Japanese market for medium-duty and heavy-duty diesel trucks for 30 years. Earlier this year, Hino said it hopes to grab 10 percent of the midsize truck market in the United States by 2010. The Japanese trucking giant had sales of more than $7 billion in fiscal 2003. Japan's biggest truck maker said it will target customers with low-emission engines and improved fuel economy. Hino expects U.S. diesel emission regulations to be more stringent than in Japan by 2007, giving the company a chance to expand sales by offering fuel-efficient trucks that are reliable and easy to maintain. Besides the new plant in Marion, Hino has other U.S. facilities at Ontario and Corona, Calif., and Orangeburg, N.Y. Currently, Hino exports only 2,000 trucks to the United States per year, but the company recently announced it will begin production of its new truck line in November at its California facility. Hino Trucks will introduce its new vehicles as model year 2005 units ready for delivery starting in January 2005. |
