IMC fighting to expand into Ukranian market

Polish automotive companies are beginning to fight for Eastern markets and among them is a well known importer of Seat cars Iberia Motor Company (IMC) who are planning to increase its involvement in the Ukraine. Despite relatively good sales in Poland the company was blocked by a growth barrier, so it decided to look for new markets. IMC is now not only willing to import Seat cars into Ukraine, but to also produce them in that country. In 2002, the company bought a 10% stake in Eurocar from the Ukrainian automotive Atol Holding group. The partners have constructed an assembly plant in Salomonów, in which they began building Skoda cars. "Recently we began assembling Volkswagen cars and we intend to expand the factory next year. We face the largest investments of EUR 25 million in 2005. We plan to gradually step away from simple assembling," said Krystian Poloczek, president of IMC supervisory board. He also added that investments were in majority financed from loans taken in Ukrainian banks. (Puls Biznesu, pp. 1, 7) M.M.