BIZCHINA / Top Biz News

Bank drives up stake in bus company
By Yu Qiao (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-06-15 09:00

From January to March, Yutong sold almost 3,000 buses, up 24.7 per cent from the same period last year.

Yu Li, a securities official at Yutong, told China Daily that Deutsche Bank may buy more shares in Yutong as the bus manufacturer is on "a steady growth track."

According to China's regulations, a single QFII is permitted to hold a maximum stake of 10 per cent in a mainland-listed company.

Yutong Group, the parent firm, said earlier that it aims to boost total sales to 40,000 buses a year by 2012 from 20,000 units last year.

It expects to be one of the world's top five bus makers by then.

Vehicle sales in China, including buses, trucks and cars, surged by 30.8 per cent year-on-year to 2.97 million units in the first five months of this year, according to statistics from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

Yutong is also aggressively expanding overseas.

The group aims to export one-third of its buses by value in the coming years, up from less than 10 per cent of them last year.

To achieve that goal, Yutong plans to build more assembly plants and create more sales and service networks abroad. It now has a plant in Cuba.

Last year, the firm exported 1,100 buses worth 630 million yuan (US$79 million).


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