Archive

Keith Nuthall
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is to invest US$20 million in a Russian tyre manufacturing plant being built by France’s Michelin group; it is, says the bank, the first western tyre manufacturer to establish a Russia-based production line for the local market.…

BY RICHARD HURST, in Johannesburg
The first shipment of 1.3 litre Ford RoCam engines manufactured by the company’s improved South African production facility left for Europe last month. Ford’s Port Elizabeth plant had been designated as a supplier of the component to the company’s assembly lines worldwide.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission has pared back regional aid earmarked by the Spanish government to invest in Ford España’s Almusafes (Valencia) plant, ruling that Madrid should spend only Euro 11.11 million, rather than the Euro 15.74 million originally planned. The money will help the plant produce a new engine, the I4, that will power cars like the Focus and the Mondeo from 2003 onwards.…

BY MARK ROWE
THE CHAIRMAN of General Motors China has warned that neighbouring south-east Asia’s home grown car industry will in future find itself squeezed by stiff competition from the emerging giant next door. China’s expanding middle class, robust economic growth and low rates of vehicle ownership means that car makers in south-east Asian countries such as Thailand will be hard pressed to compete in the growing Chinese market, according to Phil Murtaugh, chairman of General Motors China.…

BY MARK ROWE
MALAYSIA’S state oil company Petronas has signed a three-year deal with the Philippine National Oil Company (PNOC) to introduce its natural gas-powered Enviro 2000 cars to the Philippines. Petronas and PNOC will initially embark on a six-month field demonstration in Manila involving six units of the Enviro 2000.…

BY MARK ROWE
Jokes about slow-moving Skodas have long gone out of date but more than 30 Singapore car buyers may disagree, – they are still waiting for delivery of their Czech cars nine months after they each paid US$9,000 for them.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
The European Investment Bank has drawn up plans to lend Toyota Motor Manufacturing Turkey (TMMT), a subsidiary of the Toyota Motor Corporation, approximately Euro125 million to modernise an existing vehicle manufacturing plant in Adapazari, western Turkey, 120 km east of Istanbul.…

BU ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has given clearance under the EU merger

regulations to the acquisition by the German carmaker Volkswagen AG of full

control of Svenska Volkswagen AB, its exclusive wholesale distributor for

the Volkswagen, Audi, Seat and Skoda motor vehicles as well as Porsche

motor vehicles in Sweden.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has launched public consultations on three detailed set of guidelines affecting the European Union pharmaceutical industry: on inspection procedures for checking that good clinical practice rules are being followed, on qualifications for inspectors carrying out this work, and on the archiving of good clinical practice files by EU and national authorities.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Health Organisation has announced a project to prevent blindness in children that will be initially funded by a US$3.75 million Lions Clubs International Foundation donation. The strategy would include funding immunisation against measles and rubella, improving supplies of vitamin A, supplying prophylaxes against eye diseases in babies, (including gonococcal infection), and deterring the use of harmful eye medicines.…