Daewoo Targets Big Rise In 2003 Sales

Seoul January 13, 2003; Sangim Han writing for Bloomberg reporterd that Daewoo Motor Sales Corp., the Korean sales agency for GM Daewoo Auto & Technology Co. and Ssangyong Motor Co., said it wants to sell 27 percent more vehicles by volume this year.

The company aims to sell 274,118 vehicles in 2002, compared with 216,355 vehicles last year, Daewoo Motor Sales said in a statement. It didn't give details of the value of the sales.

"We will hire 1,000 more salesmen" in the first half of this year to achieve the target, the company said in a statement.

General Motors Corp. and its partners set up GM Daewoo Auto last year after they bought key assets from the former second-largest automaker in Korea.

Daewoo Motor Sales wants to sell 210,000 cars made by GM Daewoo Auto, 38 percent more than in 2002, the company said. It will also try to sell 1,400 cadillacs and other cars made by General Motors, compared with the 72 sold last year.

Lower costs and increased vehicle sales helped Daewoo Motor triple net income for the first nine months of the year to 77.3 billion won ($66 million) from 25.2 billion won in the year-earlier period.