New plant of VW inaugurated in Pune

Jochem Heizmann, member of the Board of Management of Germany;s Volkawagen, agreed with the statement of all experts that there would be strong growth from 1.2 million vehicles at the moment to over 2 million in the following five years. He also added that India is feeling the effects of the global financial and economic crisis and growth of the local automobile market has slowed down in the second half of 2008. Heizmann took part in inauguration of Volkawagen's new plant in western India. He said that the new plant would have 2,500 employees by 2010. The plant should eventually roll out 110,000 vehicles per year. The Pune plant will begin building the Skoda Fabia compact car in May. VW had now committed 580 million euros (767 million dollars) in India.

Production of a hatchback version of the Volkawagen Polo specially developed for the Indian market will be added from 2010. The plant would have a maximum annual production capacity of 110,000 vehicles, all of which were destined for the Indian market