Nissan to begin export of Sunny from March

Japanese automaker Nissan would begin exports of its latest sedan ‘Sunny’ in March, a top company official has said.

After foraying into Indian market through its completely built units SUV X-Trail and Teana, Nissan in 2005 inked an agreement with French automaker Renault to set up a manufacturing unit at an investment of Rs 4,500 crore spread over a period of seven years.

It currently manufactures Micra and Sunny cars from its facility at Oragadam near here which has a capacity of producing two lakh units.

After beginning the exports of its first hatchback Micra, Nissan Motor India Managing Director and CEO, Mr Kiminobu Tokuyama, today said that the company would commence exports of ‘Sunny’.

“We will be exporting Sunny by March-end. Already we were exporting Micra to many countries. Initially, Sunny will be exported to Middle East market,’’ he told reporters here.

Currently, Nissan sold 25,000 units of Micra while the Sunny diesel version has got over 4,000 bookings so far, he said.

On its future plans, he said the company would also increase its capacity of the Chennai plant owing to increase in production. “Initially the plant’s annual capacity is two lakh units. We will increase it to four lakh units by March…”, he said.

Asked whether the company would be required to make additional investments, he said so far Nissan has invested Rs 2,800 crore at the Chennai facility and this would be sufficient for the plant expansion.

On Nissan’s line-up of new products, Mr Tokuyama said the company’s latest multi-purpose vehicle — Evalia would be introduced by the middle of this year. “This will be competing with Toyota Innova. We will be introducing it in the middle of this year. This will be the third product to be produced from the Chennai plant”, he said.

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