SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Over the past three years, South Korea's Hyundai Motor Co. has invested 600 billion won (US$655 million) in developing new engines and expanding its commercial vehicle plant, it said Wednesday.
Hyundai Motor has spent 400 billion won (US$436 million) in developing three new commercial diesel engines and upgrading one engine, and 200 billion (US$218 million) won on the commercial vehicle plant in Jeonju, 243 kilometers (151 miles) south of Seoul, the company said in a statement.
Small, mid-size and large-size buses and trucks with the new or upgraded engines will be placed on the market from November this year, the statement said.
''We are targeting to sell 80,000 commercial vehicles a year around the world by 2010 and 100,000 units by 2012,'' Choi Han-young, president of Hyundai's Commercial Vehicle Division, said in the statement.
To achieve the target, the company said it will continue to invest 200 billion to 300 billion won (US$218 million to 327 million) a year through 2013.
Hyundai Motor, the world's sixth-largest automaker by sales, plans to export its commercial vehicles to countries such as Japan, Europe and the U.S.
The company said it aims to raise exports to 55 percent of total sales by 2012, from 38 percent currently.
The Jeonju commercial vehicle plant has an annual production capacity of 125,000 units — 17,400 buses and 107,600 trucks — as of June 2007, the company said.
This year, Hyundai is targeting to achieve 2.7 trillion won (US$2.9 billion) in commercial vehicle sales by selling 60,000 units, up from 50,000 units worth 2 trillion won (US$2.18 billion) in 2006.
The company said earlier this month that total worldwide sales fell 23.5 percent to 188,629 units in September from the same month a year ago. But worldwide sales for the first three quarters were up 4.3 percent from the same period last year.
