Dacia to export over 1.5bn euros’ worth of Duster SUVs next year

Dacia will increase production of its Duster model from the current 20 units per hour to 25 in October and then to 35 at the beginning of next year to reduce the waiting time for customers, which in Western Europe may be as long as six months.
“We are interested in expanding capacity, but it has to be done by suppliers, as well, so that they could manufacture the necessary parts. We are seeing a favourable effect in Duster’s case, whose sales are growing steadily,” said Jerome Olive, head of Automobile Dacia. Duster will thus drive the production of the carmaker in Mioveni to 330,000 vehicles this year, close to maximum capacity, 90% of which will be sold abroad.
Several months since the start of manufacturing, Duster has climbed to second place among the models exported by the Mioveni plant after Sandero, with nine in ten SUVs sold to markets such as France and Germany.
There may be more than 120,000 SUVs made at Dacia next year, ZF has calculated, which means a daily pace of over 480 cars, compared with the current 260. As a result, Duster’s exports in 2011 should exceed 1.5 billion euros, according to ZF’s calculations, that is about 5% of Romania’s exports. Together with the other Dacia models, it might exceed 10% of exports.