Nissan Motor Co. will sell its controlling stake in an Indonesian sales joint venture to a local partner in an apparent global restructuring move following a decision earlier this year to close a factory in the Southeast Asian country.

PT Nissan Motor Indonesia, a local unit, plans to reduce its 75 percent stake in PT Nissan Motor Distributor Indonesia, the sales arm, to 25 percent while Indomobil Group, the partner, will boost its interest from 25 percent to 75 percent, Hana Maharani, communications general manager at Nissan Motor Indonesia, told NNA on Friday.

The two sides have signed a memorandum of understanding on the share transfer, Nissan Motor Indonesia said in a press release on Thursday. The value of the deal was not disclosed.

The move is aimed at forming a strategic partnership with Indomobil to strengthen the Nissan brand in Southeast Asia's largest automobile market, the Japanese carmaker group said in the release.

Nissan will launch its Kicks models, which are equipped with a unique hybrid drive system that combines a gasoline engine and an electric motor, and electric vehicle LEAF, the spokeswoman said without elaborating on a specific time frame.

In Indonesia, the Japanese carmaker sold 2,798 vehicles on a retail basis in the first half of this year, a 53.3 percent plunge from a year ago. Its market share stood at 1 percent, ranking 10th in the Japanese brand-dominated market, according to the Association of Indonesia Automotive Industries.

Nissan Motor announced last May it had decided to close an Indonesian plant in a bid to streamline global operations, focusing Southeast Asian production on Thailand.

The company said on July 28 that it would post a net loss of 670 billion yen ($6.3 billion) in the business year through March 2021, with global car sales dropping 16.3 percent to 4.1 million units amid the economic storm caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic. (NNA/Kyodo)

==Kyodo

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