Diesel and Motor Engineering PLC (DIMO) will soon produce a locally-assembled vehicle for the local market to be sold under a million rupees next year – the second local vehicle to hit the market after the Micro Car series.
"We will call it DIMO Magic or DIMO Janarathaya and will be targeted at the lower end of the market," Ranjith Pandithage, Chairman/Managing Director/CEO, DIMO told the Sunday Times FT. He said the main focus next year will be assembling this ‘people's vehicle', a passenger version of DIMO’s locally-produced commercial vehicle, DIMO Butta that was launched sometime ago. Parts for the hard-top, seven seater vehicle will come from India’s Tata Group. “We are targeting to cost it below Rs 1 million but we need to ‘negotiate’ the (exorbitant) taxes,” he said.
Mr. Pandithage said next year the company wants to play an active role in developing the social and economic infrastructure of the North and East. "Amparai is the rice bowl of the country, Trincomalee has fisheries which we plan to exploit and Jaffna has traditionally been a good market for DIMO products. We are planning to push commercial vehicles, tyres, lighting solutions to these areas,” he said. He said DIMO will be opening its Jaffna branch on September 1. "We will be repairing boats and boat engines in Trincomalee and have revitalized all dealers in the North and East,” he explained, adding that DIMO is also eagerly awaiting the A9 road opening.
He said DIMO also wants to be an active player in the construction industry-especially in those areas. "We feed contractors with equipment, such as excavators, bulldozers, etc. Also we want to push medical products through the Siemens brand to these areas. He also noted that public sector cash owed to DIMO (from sales and services) has been a fair strain to the firm, but the company has seen an improvement in payback.
"This together with the overall economy showing positive trends and the interest rates on the decline will see a turnaround in DIMO in 2010," he noted. |
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