A Treatise of Toyota’s Export Performance

Toyota Indonesia, which since beginning has commmited to making Indonesia its production base, plays a role in generating a trade surplus in the automotive sector. 

Indonesia has since 2015 recorded increasingly higher trade surplus in the automotive sector. The achievement is a fruit of the attempts by various parties to encourage localization of products and of persistence in pursuing opportunities in the global market.

Based on the data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), the trade surplus in the automotive sector was only US$76.3 million. The next year the figure already rose to US$569.7 million. In 2016 the value of automotive export settled at US$5.86 billion, whereas import amounted to US$5.29 billion. The surplus continued to increase, especially in 2018 when the figure surged highly.

Overall export, including components, reached US$7.11 billion in 2018. In contrast, import of four wheeler and its components was US$4.09 billion, resulting in a surplus of US$3.02 billion. Some factors that contributed to the jump in trade surplus were the fall in import value and a leap in export value. The decline in import was caused by the massive localization of products, while the export volume rose simultaneously.

Up to present, the biggest export value still derived from the shipment of completely built-up (CBU) vehicles and completely-knocked down (CKD) vehicles. Meanwhile, the rest of export value was generated by automotive components and two-wheelers.

The data of export volume as recorded by the Association of Indonesian Automotive Manufacturers (Gaikindo) showed that Toyota Group in Indonesia was still the largest contributor to export. Products of Toyota Indonesia produced by Toyota Motor Manufacturing Indonesia (TMMIN) as well as Daihatsu consistently made up 75% of total CBU vehicle export.          

In 2015, when Indonesia’s CBU vehicle export totaled 207,691 units, Toyota Indonesia shipped 181,494 units, equal to 87.3% of overall export. So did it in 2016 with export of 194,395 units.

In 2017 the total export volume of Toyota Indonesia has gone beyond 200,000 units. And in 2018 the export volume was sustained at 210,000 units, or 78% of Indonesia’s overall CBU export.

Products made in Toyota Indonesia’s plants are shipped to 80 countries. Apart from delivering CBU vehicles, it also exports CKD vehicles, engines and other components. The great contribution of Toyota Indonesia to the national export performance has been running for more than three decades. The significant role has been portrayed by the total export of Toyota Indonesia that even had reached US$1.17 billion with CBU vehicle export totaling 45,000 units.