Japanese farm equipment manufacturer Yanmar opens facility in Myanmar

February 21, 2017

Japan’s farm equipment manufacturer Yanmar Co. said Tuesday it has opened a new import and sales facility in Myanmar in cooperation with trading company Mitsui & Co., vowing to contribute to the modernization of the country’s agriculture practices.

Yanmar’s new facility, in which Mitsui holds a 40 per cent minority stake, is located on a 10,000-square-meter site in Japanese-backed Thilawa Special Economic Zone on the outskirts of the commercial capital Yangon.

Rival Japanese manufacturer Kubota Corp. opened similar facility at the same area of Yangon earlier this month.

Yanmar Myanmar Co. was established in March last year with paid-up capital of $6 million. It now employs about 20 people with a plan to add up to 80 more within five years.

Through its new facility, which includes a warehouse, a dealer service and training centre and a showroom, the company will distribute farming machines including tractors, power tillers and combine harvesters, while offering service and sales support to its dealers, according to its Managing Director Takeshi Terada.

Terada said he expects annual sales to reach up to 2 billion yen in fiscal 2017, beginning 1 April, and as much as 10 billion within five years.

“Myanmar is the most important market in the region as the country has huge potential for agricultural machinery,” he said.

He noted that mechanization has been increasing in the country, which is the world’s seventh largest rice producer, as the number of farm workers shrinks gradually due to urbanization.

Ref; The Global New Light of Myanmar