Local Manufacturing
Toyota assembled a variety of vehicles in New Zealand from the 1960s through to late 1998. Complete knock down (CKD) kits were brought in from Japan and assembled in plants located in Thames and Christchurch. Locally produced components were also used, and included items such as tyres, seats, trims, and glass. Vehicles that were locally assembled were Corolla, Corona, Celica, Hilux, and Hi-ace.
However, during 1998 the New Zealand Government decided that tariffs on imported cars would be abolished. This led to the remaining four local assemblers (Toyota, Honda, Nissan, and Mitsubishi) to announce that they would end local assembly and switch to importing fully built-up vehicles. Cars manufactured in Australia, including Toyota Australia's Camry, were already being imported into New Zealand duty-free under the Closer Economic Relations (CER) agreement.
Toyota New Zealand decided that it would turn its sole remaining plant at Thames into a refurbishment centre for the resale of used imports from Japan, designated as Signature Class.
Read more about this topic: Toyota New Zealand
Famous quotes containing the word local:
“To see ourselves as others see us can be eye-opening. To see others as sharing a nature with ourselves is the merest decency. But it is from the far more difficult achievement of seeing ourselves amongst others, as a local example of the forms human life has locally taken, a case among cases, a world among worlds, that the largeness of mind, without which objectivity is self- congratulation and tolerance a sham, comes.”
—Clifford Geertz (b. 1926)