Total of 15,000 "punto" vehicles made - "Zastava" broke two-decade record in automobile production

The 15,000th "punto" will be assembled in "Zastava" on Wednesday. That number of vehicles is big enough for all the buyers of this automobile in Serbia, but new company "Fiat automobili Srbija" is not going to obtain the founding capital of 200m EUR from Italians yet.

Production of this model is breaking all the records from the period of sanctions and bombing, but it is much smaller than it was announced in the contract. The delays in 2008 were justified by the global economic crisis, and now the reasons for delays are "Fiat's" obligations towards "General motors", "Chrysler", "Opel", and, over the last few days, the negotiations with Chinese companies.

The contract anticipated payment of the founding capital of 200m EUR prior to March 29th at the latest.

The Mayor of Kragujevac, Veroljub Stevanović, one of the people who participated in signing of the contract and protocol with "Fiat group", told "Novosti" that the business plan of that Italian company should have arrived in April (which includes the payment of the founding capital), but that it would be submitted by the end of year 2009. Minister Dinkić announced a similar thing. "Novosti" learns that the representatives of the newly-formed company will announce on Wednesday that about 30,000 "punto" vehicles will be produced in 2010 and that the capacities of "Automobile Factory" are big enough for production of about 50,000 vehicles. In addition to classical "punto", the buyers will be able to buy this model with diesel and gas-powered engines in 2010, as well as in "van" variant with extended trunk.