HIROSHIMA, Japan—Mazda Motor Corporation announced today that it will establish a national sales company (NSC) in Taiwan in order to further enhance Mazda's brand and sales structure in the country. The NSC will be established within fiscal year ending March 2014 and begin operations in the first half of fiscal year ending March 2015. Establishing the NSC will enable Mazda to independently plan and implement branding and sales strategies in Taiwan.

The company will take over the import and sale of Mazda vehicles and the provision of customer services from the current distributor, Ford Distribution Taiwan Ltd (FDTL). The new NSC will reinforce and further expand its sales operations based on existing dealerships. FDTL will continue selling and servicing Mazda products during the transition period.

The Mazda3 (Axela in Japan) and Mazda5 (Premacy in Japan) for the Taiwanese market will continue to be produced at Ford Lio Ho Motor Co., Ltd.

Nobuhiko Watabe, Mazda's Senior Managing Executive Officer in charge of business in China and Taiwan said, "About 350,000 cars are sold annually in Taiwan, and Japanese brands are extremely popular. Mazda will leverage its next-generation products that adopt SKYACTIV TECHNOLOGY and the KODO - Soul of Motion design theme, to further raise the value of the Mazda brand in Taiwan while at the same time contributing to the overall development of the automobile market. We will execute the handover process from FDTL in a smooth and planned manner, and the new NSC will continue to offer our customers the same high quality vehicles and outstanding service that they have come to expect from Mazda."