Volkswagen announces EUR 85m Slovak plant

(BRATISLAVA) - German auto giant Volkswagen said on Wednesday it would build a new pressing shop specialising in the manufacture of car bodies in Slovakia costing about 85 million euros (125 million dollars).

"VW Slovakia has been finalising preparatory work on the construction of a new pressing shop at its facility in Bratislava that will cost 85 million euros and employ 100 people," the company said in a press release.

Volkswagen said the plant, on which construction is scheduled to begin in the second half of 2011, would start production in the third quarter of 2013.

The carmaker, which produces the higher-end VW Touareg, Audi Q7 and Porsche Cayenne models in the Slovak capital Bratislava, turned out 144,500 cars in the local factory last year, a growth of 36 percent against 2009.

Volkswagen also expects to launch a line producing small family cars later this year, following the example of its rivals in the former communist country -- South Korea's Kia Motors and France's PSA Peugeot Citroen, who weathered the global crisis by focusing on bugdet small cars.

Volkswagen exports 99.3 percent of cars produced in the Slovak plant, mostly to Germany, which buys 36 percent of its output, and to China with an 18.9-percent share.