The 36th Tokyo Motor Show, which gets into gear at Chiba's Makuhari Messe complex this week, will be showcasing some 105 commercial-vehicle companies from seven countries including, for the first time, South Korea.
Following the 1999 separation of the exhibition, passenger car/motorcycle and commercial vehicle extravaganzas are staged in alternate years. This year's is the first to be organized by the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA), which is hoping to better the public attendance figures for the corresponding event two years ago. That show, the first of its kind in Asia, attracted 178,000 visitors over the five days.
Trucks play a vital distribution role in the Japanese economy, but the show comes at a time when many manufacturers are in the red financially, overloaded with problems arising from a sluggish domestic market.