美国通用汽车公司的一位发言人10月7日表示，在经历了3年的等待之后，该公司将放弃对韩国大宇汽车公司印度生产基地的收购计划。在这3年当中，通用汽车公司一直在等待大宇汽车印度工厂的债务结算工作。

    据路透社10月7日报道，作为世界上最大的汽车制造商，美国通用汽车公司曾希望把大宇印度工厂收入囊中，并用于小型轿车的生产。然而，一些问题上长期存在的纷争让通用汽车公司不得不打消这个念头。

    通用汽车公司亚太地区总经理表示，“许多因素最终导致了这一决定的出台，其中就包括通用汽车公司需要重新估算其在印度市场的长期需求”。实际上，自从上世纪90年代中期，通用汽车就开始加大对于印度汽车市场的开发力度。公司计划将印度开拓成为一个汽车和零部件产品出口的中枢市场，并且计划在2010年前抢夺10％的印度汽车市场份额。

    而为了达到这一目标，通用汽车公司不得不把原定2006年5万辆的销量提高4倍，同时将加大小型车市场的开拓力度。考虑到去年印度汽车市场四分之三的销量来自于小型汽车，通用开拓小型汽车市场的急迫态度可想而知。

    报道说，大宇汽车印度工厂位于北方邦，年产量高达8.5万辆，并且在2000年11月大宇汽车母公司破产前，主要生产大宇Matiz及Nexia等中小型汽车。

    General Motors Corp. is giving up a bid to buy a Daewoo car plant in India after waiting three years for a debt settlement that never came, a spokesman for the U.S. company said on Friday.

    The world's largest car maker had hoped to buy the plant to make a small car, but there has been a long battle over dues owed to customs officials and creditors that local media put at nearly 30 billion rupees ($676 million).

    "A number of factors led GM to this decision, including the need for GM to step back and re-evaluate our long-term requirements in India," Rob Leggat, director of communications for GM Asia-Pacific, said in a statement.

    GM, in India since the mid-1990s, aims to use India as a hub for exports of cars and components and also grab 10 percent of its fast-growing market by 2010.

    To reach that goal, GM needs to quintuple its estimated 2006 sales of 50,000 vehicles and launch a small car, since small cars made up more than three-quarters of the nearly 1 million passenger vehicles sold in India last year.

    The Daewoo plant in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh had capacity to make 85,000 cars a year and produced the popular Matiz compact and the Cielo and Nexia sedans before closing nearly two years after its parent collapsed in November 2000.

    GM would now focus efforts on its Halol plant in the western state of Gujarat, Leggat said. GM would have used the Daewoo unit to make the Chevrolet Spark compact, and had said it would consider a new plant or retooling Halol if it did not buy it.

    "You can't be a major player in this market without a mini car. We are dead serious about bringing in a mini car," GM's president for India, Rajeev Chaba, said in June.

    GM India makes variants of the German-engineered Opel Corsa and Chevrolet Optra sedans, as well as the Tavera sports utility vehicle, and it imports the Opel Vectra and Chevrolet Forester.

    With $300 million invested in India, GM has just more than doubled capacity to 60,000 units and will raise that to 80,000 next year. It broke even in 2004 and expects a profit this year.

    GM competes with the local units of Ford Motor Co. (NYSE:F - news), Hyundai Motor Co. (005380.KS), Toyota Motor Co. (7203.T) and Honda Motor Co. (7267.T), besides top Indian car maker Maruti Udyog Ltd. (MRTI.BO) and Tata Motors Ltd. (TAMO.BO).