Chinese Foton vehicles to change local automobile market

Chinese Foton vehicles are to be brought into the Sri Lankan market for the first time in a big way in order to make a significant change in the local automobile market especially in rural areas. The Foton Company has many varieties of vehicles which include trucks, luxury buses, cars, coaster buses and others which are ideal for Sri Lankan road conditions and are economical than other vehicles in the market. INDRA Traders (Pvt) Ltd has been appointed as the local agent for Foton brand, China’s largest automobile company which today produces 310,000 vehicles in 6 manufacturer facilities in China employing 27,300 people. The company plans to manufacture more than one million vehicles by the year 2010. This was disclosed by the Brand Manager of the company John Guangman at the launch of Foton vehicles in Sri Lanka last week.

He said that his company exports Foton vehicles to almost five continents and they upgrade product features to cater the needs of buyers worldwide. Managing Director of INDRA Traders Rushanka Silva said that his company has taken a new initiative to import brand new motor vehicles to cater to the commercial and passenger transport segment with high quality low priced brand new vehicles. He revealed that INDRA Traders is planning to sell 400 Foton vehicles before the end of this year. The number of cars registered with the Department of Commissioner of Motor Traffic during the 1st eight months of this year was 14,579 while 17,000 cars were registered during the same period last year. He pointed out that the sky rocketing of fuel prices has created a kind of lull in the Sri Lankan vehicle market.

He said “the reason we ventured into this business was because we saw it as an opportunity for us to bring in correct pricing vehicles into the market and also to let the local market have choices to choose from brand new and reconditioned vehicles”. He added that these Chinese vehicles are ideal for Sri Lankan road conditions and are economical than other vehicles in the market.