SHAH ALAM: HIL Industries Bhd hopes to move its subsidiary's automotive headlining manufacturing operations to a permanent facility in three to five years in a bid to expand its customer base locally and abroad.

The subsidiary HIL-Edrola Sdn Bhd currently operates at HIL Industries’ existing facilities here jointly with Indonesian firm PT Dasa Windu Agung (DWA).

A new facility would require a capital layout of some RM15 million, and each additional line will cost some RM5 million, HIL Industries chief executive officer Datuk Milton Norman Ng told reporters at the opening ceremony of the group’s latest manufacturing facility yesterday.

HIL-Edrola’s maiden order is from Perodua for its new Aruz sport utility vehicle. Ng said HIL Industries is in talks with several other automakers in Malaysia for HIL-Edrola to supply headlining for their vehicles.

“In three years, my dream is to have [a separate] facility for HIL-Edrola,” said Ng, adding this would better position the company to acquire more local customers as well as expand into other Southeast Asian markets.

In particular, HIL-Edrola is targeting to expand into Vietnam, where DWA has future expansion plans as well. “Vietnam has a growing automotive industry. They are 10 years behind Malaysia, so [now] is when we should look into moving there,” Ng said.

Domestically, Ng cited Perodua has set a sales figure of 31,200 units by year end for the Aruz. He said HIL-Edrola’s target is to produce 100,000 headliners, more than 20% of Malaysia’s total industry volume.

“But we will start small and need to prove ourselves to our customers before we can talk about more volume,” he added, noting HIL-Edrola's success is contingent on overall demand for Perodua’s latest product.