Fiat Brazil's huge factory at Betim in the Minas Gerais region, which has recently celebrated the occasion of its 30th anniversary, will be producing even more vehicles each day as the joint Fiat-Iveco plant located in the city of Sete Lagoas will now be used for the painting processes of the Fiat Fiorino van, allowing Fiat to increase its production at Betim upwards by 80 vehicles a day, which corresponds to an additional volume of about 20,000 vehicles a year.

The decision comes as Fiat Brazil is striveing to increase capacity to cope with rising demand for its products. Already the market leader in Brazil, its sales are significantly up year-on-year during the first six months of 2007, and with a continuing rise forecast for the remainder of the year. Fiat Brazil has recently introduced a final facelift version of the Palio hatchback, Brazil's best-selling car, and similar treatment for the shared-platform Siena sedan version is imminent.

Alongside these revamped products Fiat Brazil is also gearing up for the introduce the all-new Linea '3-box' sedan and the Grande Punto hatchback. An ambitious programme to expand Fiat's presence right across South America is also well underway, and included the re-launch of the brand in the potentially lucrative Mexican last December.

To implement the painting of the Fiorino van at Sete Lagoas Fiat has just hired 50 new employees, who will be working during two new scheduled work periods.
 

"The displacement of this activity from the Betim to the Sete Lagoas plant is an answer by Fiat to the increasing level of demand in the Brazilian automobile market that is growing at a fast pace and above all the expectations, and this demonstrates the excellent operational flexibility and management capacity of Fiat Group," asserted the CEO of Fiat in Latin America, Cledorvino Belini.

Fiat will also be concluding during this month the recruiting of 1,700 new employees for its plant at Betim as it seek a major increase in the production of cars there. At the beginning of this year Fiat decided to restart the production of a whole additional shift period and this decision has elevated the daily production capacity from 2,200 vehicles up to 2,500 vehicles. The enlargement of the painting facilities of the Seta Lagoa plant coupled with the rapidly increasing of production at Betim is expected to raise the Fiat’ Brazil's production capacity up to 2,800 vehicles daily.

by Claudio Perlini