VW wants southeast Asian car plant; German carmaker will send team to scout sites in the autumn, sources say.(News)

Byline: Bettina Mayer

Volkswagen will send a team to Southeast Asia in the next few months to look for production bases in the region.

VW wants local production to help it boost sales in the region, where it predicts new-car sales will rise to 3 million by 2018 from 1.7 million last year.

"We have an eye on this market," Volkswagen group production head Jochem Heizmann told Automotive News Europe here. "We have to research which of our products could fit in which markets and how many rivals we will be up against."

Heizmann said Southeast Asian markets are highly varied, with Thailand, for example, being a strong market for pickups.

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