China and Turkey lead global growth - The Inside Line - Global annual vehicle production report - Government Activity - International Pages - Brief Article - Statistical Data Included

Automotive Industries, Sept, 2002

When looking at vehicle production by country it is important to delineate those countries under a million units per year in annual production and those over a million units per year. This is a strong measure of the amount of the rationalization in each of the different nations, the maturity of the vehicle market in each of these countries, as well as the supplier infrastructure.

For those countries building over a million units per year, China is growing at a very high compound growth rate approaching almost 12 percent Brazil also is seen as expanding its production. This growth is at the expense of Argentina, which is experiencing a very harsh economic and political climate at present. The U.K. is looking to expand vehicle production after the reformatting or the rationalization of their vehicle market in the late 90s.

Interestingly, the stories for the countries building under a million units per year, shows that a strong location for vehicle manufacturers wanting access to the European Union is in Turkey. Other countries, such as the Czech Republic are experiencing growth in vehicle production and others, mainly in Asia, (Thailand, Australia, Malaysia and Indonesia) will feature increased production rates over the next six years.

Mexico, Russia and South Korea will see fairly strong growth rates, more than 2 percent per annum, during the next five or six years.

CSM Worldwide

www.csmauto.com

[GRAPH OMITTED]