TPCA to ship over 300,000 cars in 2007, 2008

Brno, Oct 2 (CTK) - The TPCA carmaker plans to produce over 300,000 cars this year and further raise the figure next year, having made 293,650 units last year, TPCA's human resources manager Vadim Petrov said Tuesday at an economic forum at the international engineering fair in Brno.

The plant is a joint venture of Toyota, Peugeot and Citroen. It produces the Toyota Aygo, Citroen C1 and Peugeot 107 cars, and exports 99 percent to western Europe.

The largest Czech car maker Skoda Auto plans output at over 600,000 cars this year, and expects to increase it to one million by 2010.

Hyundai's plant will launch operation and produce 200,000 units in 2009 and raise output to 300,000 in 2011.

Companies in the Czech car industry generated sales worth Kc644bn in 2006, 23 percent more than in 2005.

Output increased by more than 40 percent to a record 855,832 units.

This or next year at the latest, car makers in the Czech Republic will produce over one million cars annually.

Suppliers contributed about 56 percent to the total sales and had a 50-percent share in exports.

Source: Prague Daily Monitor