Suzuki Motor Corporation is pleased to announce its support for the ASEAN Football Federation (AFF) Cup as the tournament’s title sponsor.

The AFF Suzuki Cup 2008 is the biggest football tournament in the ASEAN region since 1996. Aimed at raising the standard of ASEAN football to a world-class level and at making football more popular in the region, it will decide the top footballing nation among the AFF’s 11 members: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and Timor-Leste.

The preliminary competition for the AFF Suzuki Cup 2008 will begin on 17 October in Cambodia. The finals will be played from 5 to 28 December in Thailand, Indonesia, and other ASEAN countries.

Suzuki is also supporting a wide range of other sporting events including the East Asian Football Championship 2008 and the QUALIFIERS 2010™ which is a football sponsorship package consisting 170 of the 268 matches of European qualification. Through ongoing support for events embodying the same excitement and passion for life that are communicated by Suzuki’s global “Way of Life!” slogan, Suzuki aims to heighten its brand awareness and convey its passion for making great vehicles to sport fans around the world.

Source: Suzuki Motor Corporation

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Thai Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. (TYM), motorcycle manufacturing subsidiary of Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd., opened the newly constructed Yamaha Riding Academy (YRA) training facility on the company’s grounds on the outskirts of Bangkok, Thailand. The 84 million baht (approx. 280 million yen) facility is the Yamaha Motor group’s first permanent training facility outside of Japan, and is designed to promote riding safety on a region-wide scale.

The YRA facility occupies an area of 18,843 m2 with a training course complete with an S-shaped track section, a successive, 90-degree cornering “crank” section and a sand track to simulate a variety of riding situations. The facility also has a large meeting room with a seating capacity of 265, lecture rooms and a riding simulator room.

Thai government dignitaries including Suwit Khunkitti, former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Industry, joined Yamaha Motor president and CEO Takashi Kajikawa and TYM president Takahiko Goan at the facility’s opening ceremony.

Since 2004, there have been more than 70,000 motorcycle accidents annually in Thailand. For the last 25 years, TYM has been conducting ongoing motorcycle riding safety programs, and from 2005 the company has collaborated with the Thai Ministry of Transport to hold between 40 and 50 riding safety courses throughout the country each year. Furthermore, the company holds official riding tests for civil servants, and issues approval letters to participants who pass the test, certifying them as qualified riders. Holders of approval letters are entitled to receive a motorcycle rider’s license.

TYM will continue to strive to improve the quality of its riding safety programs by adopting the following four official YRA curriculums.

Riding Safety Course

This classroom and practical training course provides riding safety instruction for students and general license holders.

Instructor Training Course

This “Train the Trainer” course provides training for riding safety instructors from dealerships or other organizations such as driving schools.

License Training Course

This course provides both classroom and practical training to enable participants to take a test officiated by the traffic bureau and receive an approval letter that entitles them to receive a rider’s license.

Large Motorcycle Riding Safety Course

This classroom and practical course provides riding safety instruction for owners of large motorcycles.

TYM will use YRA courses in ongoing efforts to increase the number of participants in riding safety courses, while also training dealer instructors in Thailand and other parts of the ASEAN region as a means to spread riding safety at the grassroots level through dealer instructors.

Source: Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd.

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Tokyo — TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION (TMC) announced today that Toyota Motor Thailand Co., Ltd. (TMT) carried out Thailand’s largest-ever*1 tree-planting event at TMT’s Ban Pho Plant in Chachoengsao Province, Thailand.

More than 10,000 volunteers—including local residents, officials of Chachoengsao Province, Toyota suppliers and dealers, and plant employees and their family members—gathered to give root to approximately 100,000 trees at and around the vehicle production facility.

The event—representing TMC’s ongoing effort to plant trees at and around vehicle production facilities as part of its global sustainable plant activities*2—was designed to create a multi-layered natural environment using trees native to the area and to create a production site that could serve as a lush and diverse habitat for various living creatures.  Based on a survey of the local flora, 34 types of tree including yang-na and takien thong were selected, with approximately 100,000 trees planted in total.

The Ban Pho Plant, which began operation in 2007, is aimed at being an innovative plant in the Asia-Pacific region in terms of its production technology and environmental response.  It has achieved zero landfill waste since commencing operations and was the first overseas TMC plant to introduce a cogeneration system and solar panels, which enable it to cut its CO2 emissions by 9,000 tons annually.  In addition, wastewater is recycled at the plant and water-borne metallic-paint is used in vehicle body paint lines.  Currently, a biotope*3 being created at the plant will promote the reuse of materials from production and production-related processes, such as using wood from shipping crates to build bridges, waste plastic to create benches, and blocks made from solidified waste to pave footpaths.

The Ban Pho Plant, together with TMC’s Tsutsumi Plant in Japan, Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Mississippi, Inc. (TMMMS) in the United States, Toyota Motor Manufacturing (UK) Ltd., and Toyota Motor Manufacturing France S.A.S. (TMMF), is a model plant for sustainable plant activities.

TMC believes that the successful implementation of its sustainable plant activities depends on how well it can cultivate eco-consciousness among its employees and the ability of its plants to coexist with their surrounding communities.  At the Ban Pho Plant, environmental displays have been set up in each production process area to raise employees’ environmental awareness, and, through such actions as today’s tree-planting event and the future opening of the biotope to the general public, the plant intends to further its sustainable plant activities, aiming to become a production facility that will be embraced by the surrounding community.

In the future, TMC plans to gradually initiate such activities at all of its plants around the world to make sustainable plants a reality.

Source: TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION

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Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. announces the completion of a new cast wheel production facility in the premises of Yamaha Motor Parts Manufacturing Vietnam Co., Ltd. (YPMV) in response to the growing demand for cast motorcycle wheels in the ASEAN region. Transition to the new facility will be completed and manufacturing will begin in September 2008.

YPMV’s new specialized cast wheel production facility features three die casting machines that will operate as part of a comprehensive casting, processing and painting production process with the capacity to turn out 600,000 cast wheels annually. The investment for the construction and outfitting of the new facility and subsequent transfer of production is approximately 1.5 billion yen.

Cast wheels have become the mainstream wheels of choice for motorcycles in advanced markets due to their advantages in design freedom, processing ease and cost performance. In the ASEAN region with its growing motorcycle demand, there is also an increasing preference for cast wheels as opposed to conventional spoke wheels that have been predominant in the region. As evidence of this trend, the percentage of Yamaha motorcycles fitted with cast wheels has grown from 13% in 2004 to 44% in 2007 in the five ASEAN nations of Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines and Malaysia.

Yamaha Motor has met this demand thus far with cast wheels produced at PT. Yamaha Motor Parts Manufacturing Indonesia (YPMI) and wheels from external makers. Plans call for the cast wheels produced at the new YPMV facility to be supplied to Yamaha Motor Vietnam Co., Ltd., the Yamaha Motor group manufacturing company in Vietnam, as well as to group bases in Thailand and the Philippines.

In the company’s current, three-year medium-term management plan covering the period from 2008 to 2010, the ASEAN market is designated as a growth market for which the group will be aggressively investing corporate resources to “introduce attractive new products,” implemet aggressive promotions,” “strengthen sales networks” and “expand production capacities.” The aim of these activities is to increase motorcycle unit sales to 4.3 million units annually by 2010, a 50% increase from 2007.

Source: Yamaha Motors Co. Ltd.

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Asia’s second-largest motor show opened in Bangkok recently amid plummeting domestic sales, dragged by consumer worries over Thailand’s uncertain post-coup politics.

The Bangkok International Motor Show, the biggest in Asia after Japan will display 440 vehicles, with 1.6 million people expected to attend the 10-day event, the show’s organizers, Grand Prix International Co., said.

“Some 13,000 units were sold during last year’s motor show.

We expect this year’s sales to be no fewer than that,” Jaturont Ko-molmis, senior vice president of Grand Prix, said.

Toyota Lexus RX 400H, the world’s first luxury hybrid vehicle, and Mercedes-Benz’s 150-million-bhat ($4.28-million) racing car CLK-GTR were the priciest vehicle at the show, is purely for display, the organizers said.

Automakers hope the event will spur domestic sales, with year- on-year sales figures falling sharply for five straight months after the military overthrew the elected government of Thaksin Shinawatra in a coup in September 2006.

In the first two month of the year, sales were down 20 percent compared with the same period last year.

With Thailand’s consumer confidence at a five-year low and new political uncertainty is a major concern for auto sales.

If March sales are at the same level of last year,” Morikazu Chokki, president of Tri Petch Isuzu Sales Co. said.

“We want political uncertainty to be short-term and hope that auto demand will recover in the later half of the year,” said Chokki from the Japanese truck maker.