The Korean Hyundai Motors and local Truong Hai Automobile Company (Thaco) have launched a mini bus manufacturing project with the total capacity of 10,000 units per year.

It’s the first-ever manufacturing project in Viet Nam to build a new Hyundai mini bus model for export.

The first Hyundai minis buses will roll out from Quang Nam-based bus plant this year.

The bus model is the newest Hyundai model in the Vietnamese market, in co-operation with local car makers after series models of trucks, dump-trucks, buses and commercial cars were produced from 2011.

Thaco said it had invested over VND2 trillion (US$88.5 million) to build a bus plant with total capacity of 20,000 seater/sleeping buses and mini-buses per year.

The nation’s biggest automaker plans to build three more plants with the total annual capacity of 215,000 trucks, vans, commercial cars, and achieve a localisation ratio of 16 per to 46 per cent.

Thaco has so far manufactured and distributed vehicles of three foreign brands: Kia of South Korea, Mazda of Japan and France’s Peugeot. — VNS