Japanese truck maker Isuzu Motors Ltd said on Monday it was looking at building trucks in Saudi Arabia, which would make it the world's first auto maker to produce vehicles there. Construction and thus truck demand has been rising in Saudi Arabia, where the economy has benefited from a fivefold surge in oil prices over the last six years. “We are talking with a local company,” said Isuzu spokesman Tadashi Ioka. “When entering a new market, we often first outsource production to a partner, but a joint venture is also an option,” he said. Isuzu will build the midsize to large trucks from knock-down kits, where the parts of chassis, engines and other large components are exported from Japan, the Nikkei business daily reported. Production could start early next year, and inital annual output is slated at about 2,000 to 3,000 units, the paper said. Isuzu, which is 6 percent-owned by Toyota Motor Corp, exported 33,900 pick-up trucks and trucks to Saudi Arabia in 2006, up 46 percent from a year earlier. Some 9,900 of those were trucks. The company has begun discussing the option with the Saudi Arabian government and car dealers, without any time frame set, an Isuzu spokesman said. The Isuzu spokesman rejected the report published earlier on Monday by the Nikkei business daily that Isuzu is set to start the production of midsize and large trucks in Saudi Arabia early next year at an annual rate of between 2,000 and 3,000 units, before increasing it to around 30,000 units at an unspecified time in the future. The Nikkei report said Isuzu is likely to form a joint venture with local companies, including car dealers, and build what would be the first Middle Eastern car plant of a Japanese company, with a total investment of as much as 5 billion yen ($48 million). Isuzu sold 33,900 vehicles, including 24,000 pickup trucks and 9,900 full-size trucks, in Saudi Arabia in 2006, up 45 percent from 2005 and more than double its sales in 2004. The company currently exports the D-MAX pickup truck, its best-selling model in Saudi Arabia, from its plant in Thailand, while all the full-size Isuzu trucks exported to the Middle Eastern kingdom are made in Japan. __
