Daewoo To Launch Small Car

DCM Daewoo yesterday announced its plans to launch a small car within a year to take on Maruti, the countrys largest carmaker in this low-end segment. It will also launch a 1800cc to 2000cc car in the premium category. The small car would be in the 800cc to 1,000cc range.

The 92-per cent Daewoo Corp-owned company plans to launch DCM Motors range of light and medium commercial vehicles. A utility vehicle being designed by Daewoo Motors and its subsidiary at Worthing in the UK is also set to hit the roads in two years.

The company, which has an installed annual capacity of 72,000 cars, plans to manufacture 25,000 Cielos and 7,000 other vehicles in 1997-98, against a total sales of about 17,000 Cielo cars last year.

Daewoo will increase its manufacturing capacity to 2.2 lakh cars per annum in two years and over 300,000 cars per annum in five years. It plans to export a part of this output to the global markets.

Daewoos export plans from India which has been identified as a major sourcing base have been hastened owing to the dramatic deceleration in the domestic car segment which suffered a negative growth of 4 per cent last year after growing at 15 per cent in 1995-96. The low domestic volumes, according to Daewoo, would not be able to sustain the Rs 2000 crore investment already pumped in by the company and $1 billion planned in five years.

Following the change in the equity structure of the company, Arun and Vinay Bharat Ram have stepped down from the board of directors while Vivek Bharat Ram will be the sole DCM nominee for five years on the board.

Ford arm cleared

The Foreign Investment Promotion Board has cleared a proposal for the setting up of a wholly-owned electrical and fuel handling division of Ford Motor. The board, however, did not accede to Fords request to offset the export earnings from the project against the export commitments of its passenger car venture.