Trial production of punto in "Zastava"

- Trial production of bodies for "punto" automobiles started today (March 12, 2009) in Kragujevac-based automobile factory "Zastava" - the Director General of "Zastava" Group, Zoran Radojević, told Beta agency.

He said that unit "Karoserija" had produced the first body for "punto", no. 7,000,001, and added that five bodies would be made during the day, and another 10 the next day.

Radojević said that the trial production was supervised by the CEO of Torino-based "Fiat" factory and ten experts who, as he explained, examined the possibility of increasing the scope of production because of the great demand for "punto".

- They are trying to set up the equipment to equalize the quality of production with the standards of "Fiat" and to find the most economic way to produce more vehicles than it was initially planned - said he.

- About 100 employees of "Zastava" are working on that project - Radojević added.

The Director General of "Zastava Vozila" did not want to say how much the volume of production of "punto" could be increased, but he reminded that minimum 15,000 vehicles should be produced in 2009.

According to the data provided by the Ministry of Economy of Serbia, total of 17,880 requests for loans for procurement of Kragujevac's "punto" vehicles had been submitted until yesterday.

According to the words of Radojević, the same equipment that was used for production of "Zastava 10", in which "Zastava" invested 12m EUR, is used for production of "punto" vehicles.

Kragujevac-based automobile factory "Zastava" produced about 6,000 "zastava 10" automobiles in 2007 and 2008. Last year, about 4,000 of these licensed automobiles were sold.