Thailand’s Siam GS Battery is reportedly preparing to ramp up lead-acid battery production to meet increasing demand at home and across Southeast Asia.
Siam GS, a joint venture between majority partner, Japan lead-acid firm GS Yuasa Corporation and Thailand’s Siam Motors, is investing around $30 million in the expansion, according to the Bangkok Post.
The paper said part of the investment (around $22.5m) would support an annual production increase of 500,000 batteries a year from the four million units currently produced by Siam GS, in central Thailand’s Samut Prakan province.
Siam Motors executive vice-president Prakasit Phornprapha told the newspaper some 300,000 batteries a year will be shipped to Japan from Thailand from 2019.
Other destinations for the Thai-made batteries include Malaysia and Myanmar— where GS Yuasa confirmed it was setting up a new business to start operations in January 2019.
The new company, based at a 9,000 square metre site on an industrial park in the Yangon Division, will import and charge the Siam GS batteries in Myanmar for wholesale selling for cars, homes and the domestic power storage market.
GS Yuasa announced last November it planned to expand production in countries beyond Japan as it marked 100 years of operations.