Fiat and Chrysler Group president Sergio Marchionne said on Monday that car sales in Latin America saved the corporation’s balance sheet last year and announced an overall increase in car sale operations in accordance with regional demand.
Chrysler anticipated that by the second quarter it will have repaid bailout loans worth more than 7 billion US dollars given by the US and Canadian governments. The auto group said it would pay back the bailout by June with loans from investors.
Italy’s Fiat Industrial, through its affiliate CNH, will set up a plant in Argentina to manufacture powerful combines and specialty tractors destined for the Latin American market. The plant will create some 600 direct and 1,500 indirect jobs, CNH said in a statement on Tuesday.
Fiat announced this week that it plans to invest 3 billion Real (approx. 1.7 billion USD) to build a second plant in Brazil, the carmaker’s No. 2 market after its native Italy.
Italy's Fiat will invest 10 billion Reais (USD 6 billion) in Brazil by 2015 in operations that include production of cars, auto parts and agricultural machinery.
The Brazilian automotive industry will invest 11.2 billion US dollars over the next two years to 2012, an amount that tops the 8.1 billion of the three preceding years, local media said Saturday.