Japanese auto giant Toyota Motor Corp. has begun to sell the Kijang Innova vans from its plant in Indonesia, where Innova enjoyed market boom, a local newspaper reported Wednesday.

After taking the domestic automotive market by storm, Kijang Innova has now expanded its market to the Middle East, the car manufacturer PT Toyota Motor Manufacturer Indonesia (TMMIN) revealed on Tuesday.

With the first shipment transported in July, PT Toyota Motor Manufacturer Indonesia (TMMIN) has set an export target for the Middle East of 4,500 completely built up (CBU) units of the multipurpose vehicles annually, reported The Jakarta Post.

"This bodes well for achieving our total export target of some 10,000 units of Innova per year," the company's planning chief Irwan Priyantoko was quoted as saying.

Aside from the Middle East, Innova has also been exported to Thailand and Brunei Darussalam since late last year.

"So far, sales in the two countries have reached about 5,000 units," he said.

On the domestic front, sales reached about 50,000 units in the first month of the year. Launched only in September last year, some 22,300 cars had been sold by the end of last year.

Innova, manufactured with about 70 percent local content, is the new generation of the Toyota Kijang minivan, which for years has been the top selling car in Indonesia.

Irwan said that at present, the company would boost its production capacity of 70,000 units per year to 100,000 units per year starting next year.

The Kijang was the first four-wheeled vehicle in the country to reach the one million production mark. This was achieved in October in 2003.

Source: Xinhua