Maruti Suzuki to limit exports to last year’s level

A top official of Maruti Suzuki said that the company will confine its exports to the last year's level due to some capacity constraints. R C Bhargava, Maruti Suzuki Chairman said that they were not competing in the exports with the other carmakers as they are short of capacity.

Maruti Suzuki exported 1.47 lakh units in 2008-09 which included over 1.27 lakh units  of the compact car A-star alone. This car was even exported to the European countries like UK, France, Germany, Italy and Netherlands. The non-European export markets for this car include Algeria, Chile, Indonesia and few more neighbouring countries.

Looking at the increasing demand for its products,Maruti Suzuki has started working on its plan to increase the capacity at the Manesar plant.  Bhargava also said that though they have started work at Manesar but then also, it will take time to reach full capacity, which would be by 2012. In Mar 2010, the company had also announced an investment of  Rs 1,700 crore for the expansion of its production by  2.5 lakh units at its Manesar plant.

When asked, whether the company was facing delay in deliveries, Bhargava gave an affirmative answer. He said that almost all their  models are in the waiting list. He also added that the average waiting period is three months for the diesel variant of Swift Dezire. The company will keep on increasing the production to meet customers' demand.