A milestone was reached last week when Renault launched the Colombian-assembled Dacia Duster mid-size SUV for sale not just locally but throughout Latin America, a first for the local industry.
The Sofasa facility in Medellín (capacity 50,000 units a year) is assembling parts from four continents: platform and suspensions from Argentina, wheels from India, engines from Brazil, the 4×4 drivetrain from the Far East (China, Japan and Korea), gearboxes from France and remaining parts from Colombia, Turkey and Chile.
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The Colombian Duster will be built with 1.6- and two-litre engines, four-speed automatic and five-speed manual gearboxes plus two- or four-wheel drive. Export shipments are starting, including an order for 10,000 units for México.
Meanwhile, General Motors announced a US$200m spend on a press shop for its Colmotores assembly plant in Bogotá. The deal was announced as Colombia was negotiating a free trade agreement with Korea that will gradually reduce tariffs on automotive products. Panel stamping is planned to start in 2013.
GM said the shop would be installed in a 42,000 sq m area alongside the assembly plant. Two presses will produce all 11 body panels of a yet to be named car model. The presses will have 1,000 and 2,250 ton capacity. The spend will add 60,000 vehicles to the current installed capacity of 80,000 units per year. The longest-established assembler in Colombia also plans to export both assembled vehicles parts througho Latin America.
GM said only the locally pressed panels are for a couple of new vehicle models.
Mazda has an assembly plant in Bogotá (15,000 units a year) but has so far said nothing about new projects, not even mentioning the recently announced investment in Mexico (with Sumitomo) to replace shared operations with Ford in the US.
Considering the already signed FTAs already in place between Colombia and both Mexico and the US, the Bogotá plant would be eligible to start production of cars for export to those countries.
Last month car sales grew 13% YTD and some analysts forecast 360,000 vehicles for the year (2011: 324,000). GM so far has 35% of market share, Renault 16% and Mazda 4%.
