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HNB teams up with DIMO for leasing TATA commercial vehicles

Hatton National Bank the premier private sector commercial bank in Sri Lanka joined hands with Diesel and Motor Engineering (DIMO) to promote the TATA commercial vehicles and Nano cars.

Through this initiative, the buyers of TATA commercial vehicles and Nano cars will get an attractive tailor made leasing package from HNB Leasing.

HNB Leasing will offer unmatchable attractive leasing packages for TATA buyers through its network of 247 Customer Centres in the country.

In addition to this a life insurance cover of Rs.1.2 million and a HNB credit card free of joining fee will be offered. DIMO is the market leader in the commercial vehicle segment; furthermore DIMO and TATA have a strong relationship of over 50 years in the Sri Lankan market.

DIMO has sales, service and spare parts Outlets Island wide with 24 hour road side assistance to provide an efficient service to its valuable customers.

With a number of development projects, Hotels and Apartments planned to be initiated in the Country, there will be a greater demand for good quality commercial vehicles.

This demand can be successfully met through such attractive leasing packages to obtain good quality TATA vehicles.

BMW says hit record sales in 2012

German top-of-the-range carmaker BMW sold a record 1.8 million vehicles in 2012, chief financial officer Friedrich Eichiner said in a newspaper interview Thursday.

“One of our goals for 2012 was to increase unit sales and achieve a new deliveries record. With 1.8 million vehicles, we've done that,” Eichiner told the Die Welt daily.

Earlier this month, Eichiner had said that BMW was “on target” for reaching a new sales record following buoyant sales in November.

In November, BMW's worldwide sales rose by about 20 percent to more than 170,000 vehicles. In the 11 months to November, vehicle sales so far this year reached about 1.66 million, an increase of some 10 percent compared with the same period last year. The carmaker's aim was to lift sales again next year, Eichiner told Die Welt. “The big question is whether the markets will allow it,” he said, cautioning that BMW would see “stagnation at best” in Europe.

“The United States, on the other hand, will offer recovery opportunities, with the overall market there projected to grow by 5.0 percent and the premium segment even stronger,” Eichiner said.

AFP

Geely Looking to Buy Manganese Bronze

The UK taxi manufacturer Manganese Bronze was hit by the perfect storm of issues over the past four years, taxi sales slumped from 2008 onwards due to the recession and also suffered from accounting errors, continual losses, and product recalls all of which drove the company’s stock price down.

Manganese Bronze and Geely set up a joint venture in Shanghai in 2006 to lower the costs of producing the vehicles, which were later shipped to the UK in CKD form and assembled locally for the UK market.

Geely later bought 20% of the company and has now offered to buy the remaining 80% of MB.

It’s not entirely clear why Geely would be interested in continuing the relationship with MB, especially with continuing losses and product issues and also increasing competition from rival manufacturers in the taxi market.

However, MB were planning to launch Geely’s Emgrand range in the UK in late 2012, the bankruptcy has likely slowed down the plan but Geely still seem keen on selling cars in the UK if they are planning to buy 100% of Manganese Bronze.

China Car Times

China official manufacturing index expands in December

China's manufacturing activity expanded in December at the same pace as November, official data showed Tuesday, adding to signs the world's number two economy is emerging from a recent slumber.

The official purchasing managers' index (PMI) reached 50.6 in December, unchanged from the previous month, according to the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing and the National Bureau of Statistics.

The PMI is a widely watched barometer of the health of China's economy, and a reading above 50 indicates expansion while anything below points to contraction.

The result, the highest since April, marked the third straight month the index has shown growth but it fell short of the the median 51.0 forecast of five economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires.

The data came a day after a survey by banking giant HSBC showed manufacturing activity surged to a 19-month high of 51.5 from 50.5 in November.

A steady strengthening in China's manufacturing sector, and improvements in areas including broader industrial production and retail sales, have spurred optimism that the country's economic slowdown has bottomed out.

Growth hit a more than three-year low of 7.4 percent in the third quarter to September, though data for the October-December fourth quarter has led to expectations of a pick-up.

Beijing is expected to release gross domestic product data for the past three months later in January.

AFP

Volvo mulls Indian car plant in global sales drive

Swedish car maker Volvo said on Thursday it was studying the possibility of setting up a car manufacturing plant in India as part of a drive to nearly double global sales.

The company, owned by Chinese group Geely Automobile, aims to increase worldwide sales to 800,000 vehicles by 2020, from a current 440,000 a year.

“It makes sense to set up a car manufacturing facility in India as we target sales of 20,000 units by 2020 here,” Volvo Auto India managing director Tomas Ernberg said in western Ahmedabad city, the Press Trust of India reported.

“A group within Volvo is conducting a feasibility report,” he told reporters, according to the news agency.

Volvo sold 820 units in India this year, up from 320 vehicles last year.

The company expects sales of 1,200 vehicles in 2013.

Luxury car makers have dealerships in many large Indian cities, attracted by the growing numbers of wealthy Indians.

Around 28,000 luxury car units were sold in India by players like Mercedes, Audi, BMW, Volvo, among others, this year.

Along with China, India has become a key market for global car manufacturers after growth in Europe and the United States stagnated in recent years.

Sweden's Volvo Bus Corp, a separate company, entered India a decade ago to make heavy-duty trucks before moving into the luxury bus segment.

The company has a large bus manufacturing factory at Hoskote, near the southern city of Bangalore.

AFP

Toyota says to sell 9.7 mn vehicles this year, up 22%

Toyota said Wednesday that it expects to sell 9.7 million vehicles globally this year, up 22 percent from 2011 as Japan's biggest automaker accelerates a recovery after last year's natural disasters.

Those figures may put Toyota back in pole position as the world's biggest automaker, ahead of General Motors and Volkswagen. Previous company figures showed Toyota, whose brands include Lexus, Daihatsu and Hino, topped the global carmakers' table in the first half of 2012, accelerating past US-based GM and the German auto giant.

Toyota lost the title last year -- a spot it had held between 2008 and 2010 -- following a slump in production and sales owing to Japan's March 11 quake-tsunami disaster, floods in Thailand and the strong yen. GM, which sold about nine million vehicles last year, was the world's biggest carmaker followed by Volkswagen with more than eight million vehicles sold. Toyota sold 7.95 million vehicles.

Toyota also said Wednesday it expects to sell about 9.91 million vehicles in 2013. It was on track to produce 9.94 million vehicles in 2013, nearly unchanged from this year, the company added.

AFP