GM’s affiliate in Venezuela recently announced plans to reopen a car assembly plant that has been closed for almost three months.

GM’s president in Venezuela, Ronaldo Znidarsis, said General Motors plans to restart production at its plant because government has agreed to sell the company dollars it needs to imports.

GM halted operations at the plant in June, saying the company had accumulated some $1.15 billion in debts to foreign providers.

GM Venezuela’s largest automaker controls 53.6 percent of the local market, according to the Venezuelan Automobile Chamber.

Car sales have dropped 30 percent during the first five months of 2009 compared to same period last year, according to the chamber. GM’s plant assembled 29,007 vehicles during the first five months of this year, compared to a total of 29,207 vehicles during the same period last year.

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Europe’s biggest carmaker Volkswagen has recently announced plans to invest $5.8 billion in China over the next three years in an effort to maintain its leading market position there and beat the competition. The investment will be used to develop new products and increase production capacity over the next two years. Volkswagen already sells a wider range of products in China than any other carmaker, and has introduced three new models there this year.

It sold more cars in China than it did in Germany during the month of July.But Volkswagen is far from the only automaker in China. According to analyst firm JD power, more than 90 Chinese and foreign car brands operate in China, including Toyota, Ford and Peugeot Citroen. Only 20 people out of every 1,000 in China own a car, according to market researchers TNS, compared to 700 per 1,000 in America.

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Toyota recently launched a fully remodeled Land Cruiser Prado sport utility vehicle in the Japanese market, with improved on-and-off road performance.

Toyota set its monthly sales target for the fourth-generation new Land Cruiser Prado, a mid size four-wheel drive vehicle, at 1,000 units. Toyota said specific improvements include space between the front and second-row seats, enhancements to the time-tested full-frame structure and higher body rigidity, making the ride even more comfortable.

The adoption of a kinetic dynamic suspension system also allows for more stable driving at city and highway speeds, and a “crawl control” feature enhances rough-road compatibility, Toyota said.

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Hyundai has ranked 8th among global automakers in the highly respected 2009 Global Brands Survey, surpassing several prominent brands including Porsche, Lexus and Nissan.

Interbrand looked at brands from all business fields-with Hyundai ranking 69th, up 15 places from its inaugural score in 2005. Since then, Hyundai has registered steady annual growth in its brand value on a global basis.

Much of the credit must go to a range of award-winning vehicles like the Genesis sedan, with further growth expected thanks to upcoming model releases such as the ix 35 compact SUV and the all-new mid-sized sedan code named YF.

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India’s larges carmaker Maruti Suzuki India, majority-owned by Japan’s Suzuki Motor, recently announced record exports in August, led by strong demand across European markets.

Maruti’s exports nearly tripled to 14,847 vehicles during the month, from 5,795 a year earlier. India’s carmakers saw demand for vehicles fall last year due to the global downturn, but lower interest rates and recent stimulus packages from the government have boosted sales.

Maruti sold a record 85,669 vehicles in March this year.

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Suzuki Motor recently said it plans to invest $215 million to build a new car factory in India, aiming to upgrade its production facilities in the face of growing competition. Suzuki, which controls about half the Indian car market through its unit Maruti Suzuki India Ltd said that the new facility would come on-line as early as 2011 and have an annual output capacity of about 250,000 cars.

The plant will expand its existing Manesar facility in the state of Haryana, about 50 kilometers from New Delhi.

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Toyota moved down by two notches to eighth place and Honda advanced to 18th from 20th in Business Week’s annual ranking of the Best Global Brands for 2009, according to the latest edition of the business magazine. Coca-Cola retained its top slot for the ninth consecutive year, followed by IBM in second and Microsoft in third, both unchanged.

Google climbed from 10th to seventh, with its brand value rising 0,25 percent in the past year, the past year, the largest percentage increase among the 100 brands.

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The government of Russia decides to keep for at least up to July 2010 high import duties of 200 percent on imported used cars.

The import duties were introduced in January 2009 for a period of nine months. After nine months, now the government has extended same high import duties for another nine months.

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Japan’s top five auto makers have recently reported smaller year-on-year declines in their global production in August compared with July, showing signs of a bottoming out in auto production. Among the five, Mitsubishi recorded the sharpest global production drop of 32.1% to 62,924 units, but the margin of year-on-year decline narrowed from a 45.6% in the previous month.

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The Asian domination of American auto sales is set to intensify despite dramatic improvements and painful restructuring at the Detroit Three, analysts said.

Asian automakers captured 52.3 percent of American sales in August-the first they controlled more than half the American market and the culmination of decades of steady growth at the expense of GM, Ford and Chrysler.

The five point jump from a year earlier was attributed largely to a government-funded “Cash for Clunkers” program that spurred demand for their fuel-efficient vehicles, but analysts the trend will continue.
South Korean automakers Hyundai and Kia are also making major inroads as they expand their offerings and take advantage of their price advantage and some savvy marketing.

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