... follow-up to my last post:
Here is Zastava Automobili is based in Kragujevac, Yugoslavia.
zastavadd.co.yu
The only press releases I cound find in English all date from 1999, when their plant was being bombed by NATO. Check out the April 9, 1999 press releases which show the bombed out factory:
This night, the 9th of April, the ZASTAVA factory plants in Kragujevac were bombed. ... This bombardment has inflicted sever damage to factory equipment and almost completely destroyed the energy supply complex that served not only to the ZASTAVA needs, but also for the heating of the entire city of Kragujevac: its residential houses, schools, faculties, hospitals...
theautochannel.com:8080/news/date/19970217/news03219.html
Reuters reports that Zastava of Kragujevac, a carmaker from the former Yugoslavia and manufacturer of the Yugo compact car, announced last Thursday that it will choose a new foreign partner within the next three months. Local media earlier reported Zastava was in the final stages of talks with Hyundai, and that a contract would be signed in February.
Zastava's spokesman Zvonko Osrecki refused to comment on that possibility, but said, "talks have narrowed to two from eight potential partners." He also said, "one potential partner is from Europe and the other one from the Far East."
Osrecki said his company plans "to replace the existing production program with a new one with the output reaching 150,000 vehicles by the end of the century."
Since the dissolution of the former Yugoslav federation and after four years of crippling war-related U.N. sanctions, a loss of markets, and mismanagement, Zastava's production has slid from about 200,000 cars a year in 1990 to about 10,000 cars last year. Zastava hopes that foreign investors will provide the money it needs to survive and to revitalize its production.
Osrecki said, "our system is exhausted. And we must upgrade our outdated technology to renew our range of products and increase productivity."
One anonymous industry official expressed doubts that Zastava could attract foreign investment: "it owes 90 million German marks to Italy's Fiat. It must also deliver a few thousand vehicles paid for in 1991. And what about delayed payments to its employees?"
Zastava contacted many European carmakers about possible cooperation; Peugeot, Renault, and Fiat all turned the company down.
Another analyst said Yugoslavia--consisting now of Serbia and Montenegro, with a population of only about 10.5 million people, and with an economy in ruins--cannot sustain car production.
Zastava set its 1997 production goal at 30,000 vehicles and expects to export half of them.
Regards,
John Sladek |
