General Motors India to invest Rs 100 cr in 2006

Kolkata, Mar 22: General Motors India, the wholly owned subsidiary of the world's largest automaker General Motors Corporation, will invest Rs 100 crore in 2006 to fund the new models launch and capacity expansion at its plant at Halol in Gujarat.

"We have already invested Rs 1400 crore in the Indian operations.

We will invest another Rs 100 crore to scale up operations and launch new models this year," GM India's vice-president (marketing, sales and after sales) Ankush Arora told reporters here today.

Mr Arora was in the city to launch the "Chevrolet Aveo" the first of the three new Chevrolet products debuting in the first six months of 2006.

The Aveo is priced between Rs 5.5 lakhs to Rs 6.8 lakhs.

Aveo will be joined by Aveo U-VA and Optra SRV in the coming months, he said.

The capacity of GM India's Halol facility is being increased to 85,000 units from the present 60,000 units. The company currently produces the Chevrolet Optra and Chevrolet Tavera in the Halol plant.

GM India has set a target of selling 50,000 units in 2006 as against 30,837 cars sold in 2005.

UNI