Harada Named IMMA President
Minoru Harada, Senior Managing Director of Honda Motor Co., Ltd. has been named President of the International Motorcycle Manufacturers Association (IMMA), an organization comprised of the motorcycle industry associations of Asia, Europe, and North and South America.
Harada was elected at the IMMA’s 12th General Assembly, held last month in San Diego. Hosted by the United States Motorcycle Manufacturers Association (USMMA), the annual meeting was attended by 16 delegates from the USMMA as well as delegates from the European Motorcycle Manufacturers Association (ACEM), the Federation of Asian Motorcycle Industries (FAMI), and the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM).
The IMMA was formed to conduct studies on a wide range of issues pertinent to the development of the global motorcycle industry, and to represent the industry in voicing opinions to international agencies. The IMMA is equipped with the Steering Committee, in charge of organizational management; the Technical Committee, to promote international harmonization of technical regulations and certification systems; and the Non-Tech Task Force, to target international cooperation in the compiling of statistics and other non-technical fields. USMMA member Timothy Hoelter served as IMMA president for the past three years.
“It is with great honor to be selected as president of IMMA at a time like this, when the significance of this association is dramatically expanding at a global level,” Harada said during an inaugural address.
Harada said the most important aspect of the global motorcycle industry is the need to harmonize the fields of motorcycle technical standards and certification systems. He said the efforts to achieve international harmonization of standards and certification are being promoted to the World Forum for Harmonization of Vehicle regulations of the United Nations Economic Commission, but warned that rational and realistic standards will need active participation by delegates of the international motorcycle industry.
“For IMMA, the importance of international standardization activities has never been greater,” he said, promising to help propagate developments in the area.
The 2004 General Assembly was held in Kakegawa, Japan, and the 2005 event was held in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. The 2007 IMMA General Assembly will be held in India in May, hosted by SIAM.
