Ceremony held to commemorate launch of relocated and expanded Latin America Total Support promotion office in Panama

Hino Motors, Ltd. (Hino) (Headquarters: Hino-shi, Tokyo; President: Yoshio Shimo) has relocated and expanded its Latin America Office in Panama to strengthen promotion of its Total Support activities in Latin America and the Caribbean region. A ceremony to commemorate the opening of the new Hino Latin America Office was held January 17 (local time). The event was attended by guests including Japanese Ambassador to Panama Takashi Owaki and Panama Minister of Commerce and Industries Ramon Martinez as well as Hino Motors Managing Officer in Charge of Total Support Megumu Yamashiki.

In its Challenge 2025 initiative announced in October 2018, Hino outlined a plan to enhance Total Support to support the business operations of customers and increase unit sales worldwide as one component of strengthening its business foundation to provide greater value to customers and society. Latin America together with North America makes up the Americas, an important market for Hino and one of its three strategic pillars.

Hino has relocated its Latin America Office to the Panama Pacifico Special Economic Zone to serve as a regional base to promote Total Support. The new office will also feature updated training facilities for training distributor personnel as well as more space for holding meetings and skills contests. The office will facilitate the smooth implementation of Total Support customized for each vehicle to maximize customer vehicle uptime and minimize vehicle life cycle costs.

Hino has a long history in Latin America. Since entering the market since 1960's, Hino has increases sales with vehicles and finely honed support designed to meet customer needs. In 2019, Hino sold around 15,000 new vehicles and reached cumulative sales in the region around 200,000 units. Hino opened the Latin America Office in 2013 as an after-service technical training center to service the needs of the growing Hino customer base. Panama's central Latin America location and role as a major transportation hub have been geographically convenient and helped the office to promote support activities in the region including distributor training seminars, events and conferences. In 2016, office functions were further expanded to include items including new vehicle product prelease training.

Moving forward, Hino will accelerate efforts to provide Total Support customized for each vehicle to keep each vehicle of every customer operating in top condition in order to continue to contribute to the businesses of customers in Latin American and Caribbean countries.

Striving to realize its slogan of "Trucks and buses that do more," Hino will continue its approach focusing on the "three directions" of best-fit products incorporating safety and environmental technologies, Total Support customized for each vehicle, and pursuing challenges in new areas. In this way, Team Hino's remains resolved to work hard together to provide great value to both customers and society.

■Exterior of new office

＜Office overview＞

Name	Hino Motors, Ltd. - Latin America Office
Location	Panama Pacifico Special Economic Zone, Republic of Panama （Building 3835, Panamá Pacífico Blvd., Panamá Pacífico, Republic of Panamá）
Representative	Hironobu Tsujimoto
Established	April 11, 2013 Note: Launched operations in new location on January 17, 2020
Operations	Promotion of Total Support activities and infrastructure-building efforts in the Latin America and Caribbean region including through the implementation of training and other activities
Office area	1,300 m2
Employee no.	16　(as of January 17, 2020, including Hino employees from Japan and locally hired staff)

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