Tata Motors, India’s third-biggest car maker, said on Monday it had entered the South African passenger car market and started selling the Indica hatchback and the Indigo sedan.

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Tata Motors will introduce four versions of the Indica and two versions of the Indigo, it said in a statement cited by Reuters. It will also start selling trucks made by Korea’s Daewoo Commercial Vehicles, which it acquired in March, in the first quarter of the fiscal year 2005/06.


Reuters noted that Tata Motors, India’s biggest bus and truck maker, has been selling medium commercial vehicles and buses in South Africa since 1997, and is setting up a bus assembly unit in Johannesburg at an investment of 40 million rand ($US6.5 million).


Tata is aiming to boost the contribution of foreign sales to revenue to 15-20% in the next three years from almost 8%, the report added.


The company expects exports of buses and trucks to rise by 50% in the year to March 2005 from 10,832 units the previous year, with a focus on countries in South Asia and the Middle East, besides South Africa, Reuters said.

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