Jakarta. Xiaomi, a Chinese smartphone manufacturer, announced on Friday (11/02) it has begun building a plant in Indonesia to manufacture smartphones, shifting its focus to the Indonesian market to cater to growing demand from local customers.

Xiaomi will make a new product, the Redmi 4A, at the manufacturing plant in Batam, Riau Islands, to comply with the Indonesian government's demand that all 4G-capable devices sold in the country use locally produced components.

Xiaomi has also partnered with three local companies: publicly-listed cellphone distributor Erajaya Swasembada, electronics manufacturer Sat Nusapersada and hardware and software designer house TSM Technologies.

The Redmi 4A will be available from local distributors starting late February.

"I would like to thank our local partners for their cooperation and support to make this possible. There's a lot of potential growth ahead for the country in this area," Xiaomi Senior Vice President Wang Xiang said in a statement sent to the Jakarta Globe.

Xiaomi first entered the Indonesian market in August 2014 with its then revolutionary Redmi 1S smartphone — one of the cheapest 4G smartphones (under Rp 1.5 million ($113)) available in Indonesia at that time.

The Redmi 1S was very popular with local customers, who like cheap phones with a lot of features. Since then, Xiami has thrown a few more of its cheap but high-spec smartphones to the Indonesian market with relative successes..

"Indonesia is an important market for Xiaomi. We are committed to incorporating local manufacturing capabilities into our smartphones, and we are also looking to work closely with software developers in Indonesia to further improve the user experience," Xiaomi Southeast Asia President Director Steven Shi said.

"It has been a great ride for us since we first partnered with Xiaomi back in 2014. We are really excited to see Xiaomi take such a significant step in Indonesia and we are looking forward to them manufacturing more products locally and getting them into the hands of more Indonesians," Erajaya Swasembada Vice President Hasan Aula said.

The signing of the partnership agreement was attended by Communications and IT Minister Rudiantara, the director general of national export development at the Trade Ministry Tjahya Widayanti, the director general of machinery and transportation industries association I Gusti Putu Suryawirawan and the Chinese Ambassador to Indonesia Xie Feng.

Xiaomi was founded in 2010 by Lei Jun, and by 2014 has sold more than 61 million products. Xiaomi smartphones and accessories are available in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, India, Indonesia and Brazil.

The Erajaya Group, established in 1996, is an integrated retail and distribution company for mobile telecommunication devices and products including mobile phones, tablets, SIM cards, accessories and other types of electronic device.