South Korea's Kia Motors and its Malaysian partner Naza Kia
South Korea's Kia Motors and its Malaysian partner Naza Kia will launch four new car models next year mainly to take on national carmakers Proton and Perodua, a report said on Friday.
The four models included a one-liter car, similar to Kia's Picanto, and three higher-capacity models, the Financial Daily quoted sources as saying.
The source said the one-liter car may be marketed initially as a completely built-up unit before being assembled locally as a completely knocked down unit, so it could be priced lower than the 36,000-41,000 ringgit (US$9,474-$10,789) tag for the Kelisa model by second national carmaker Perodua.
2. 1 x 45 Hyundai group reshuffles executives amid feud Hyundai group reshuffles executives amid takeover war
Hyundai Group said on Friday it has replaced four top executives as the group's chairwoman Hyun Jung-Eun seeks to tighten her grip on the business empire locked in a heated family feud.
The management reshuffle, the first under Hyun's leadership, came as the battle for control of the ailing conglomerate intensified between Hyun and her rival, Chung Sang-Yung, her late husband's uncle.
"With this, chairperson Hyun begins actively coming up to the forefront of group management," Song Jung-Hwan, a Hyundai spokesman, told AFP.
Hyun replaced half of eight top Hyundai group executives who had tendered resignations a week ago.
She reaffirmed in a statement she would push for turning the formerly family-run group into a "people-owned" business through a public offering, a move opposed by Chung in the row over congrol.
3. 2 x 24 Problematic production fields to burden CNOOC CNOOC admits problematic production fields to pressure costs
Chinese energy giant CNOOC Ltd. said Friday that complex problems arising from some of its production fields will pressure costs and lower production in 2004.
The mainland's largest offshore oil company cited two major fields in Bohai Bay in northeastern China as among those that were proving more challenging than expected due to their complex geological structures.
The Hong Kong-listed firm said although the production pressure was not expected to "impact materially" on the company's 2003 targets, operational difficulties would have an impact on next year's production and costs.
"Our partners and we are implementing measures to deal with these problems," said Zhou Shouwei, president of CNOOC.
"While these problems are not uncommon and we were in the past able to make up shortfalls elsewhere, these difficulties coming together are expected to remove approximately 5-6 million barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) of production from planned 2004 targets," Zhou added.
CNOOC announced in September that first half net profit soared 75 percent to 6.3 billion yuan (US$759 million) from 3.6 billion yuan a year earlier on strong oil and gas sales.
The firm added its average daily production increased year-on- year by 45,446 BOE a day to 352,780.
Oil and gas revenues also rose 47.3 percent compared with a year earlier at 14.2 billion yuan due to an increase in oil and gas production and a 30.9 percent rise in realized oil prices.
CNOOC chief financial officer and senior vice president, Mark Qiu, said some of the fields, including PY5-1/4-2 in the Eastern South China Sea, had also been slower than budgeted in ramping up production which combined with higher operating cost bases were "showing up in increased unit costs".