During his Detroit Motor Show press conference, Takanobu Ito, President and CEO of Honda Motor Co., confirmed Acura is going global.

Acura, as you know, is Honda’s luxury brand. They are what Lexus is to Toyota, only Acura is only for the American market, and that makes it more like Infiniti, the luxury brand for Nissan.

But with Lexus enjoying a global success, and Infiniti off to a flying start in Europe, Honda decided it’s time to expand Acura’s business into new markets around the world. They are not going fully exposed, mind you, they will probably start with a few markets such as the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Ukraine.

It is planned to introduce the Acura brand to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia by the end of 2013 and to Russia and Ukraine in 2014. The demand for large, luxury, performance vehicles in these markets perfectly matches the Acura brand attributes.

There’s still no plans to introduce Acura to the European market.