July 3, 2008  From http://english.autoinfo.gov.cn

(July 3)--India’s Tata Motors expects its launch of the Nano, the world’s cheapest car, and its purchase of Jaguar and Land Rover to offset some of the pain of a challenging 2008-09 that has knocked its shares to their lowest in more than three years. 
     
Shares in Tata Motors, which raised prices of its commercial vehicles by 3 percent on Tuesday, fell 4.2 percent, taking their losses in 2008 to 45 percent, as it and other auto firms battle high input costs, rising interest rates and slowing demand. 
     
These factors would dent sales of commercial and passenger vehicles in the fiscal year to March 2009, Chairman Ratan Tata said in the company’s annual report, published on its website on Tuesday. 
     
"In addition, the company will have to manage the completion of the Singur plant (for Nano) and introduction of the Nano," he said. 
     
"Tata Motors will also have to absorb the cost of the JLR acquisition, and deal with its integration," he said, referring to the $2.3 billion purchase of the luxury Jaguar and Land Rover brands that the company completed recently. 
     
Tata said he expected strong sales of the Nano, and added scale and profits from Jaguar and Land Rover, which he said had "tremendous unfulfilled market potential". 
     
Tata Motors plans to raise $1.7 billion from three rights issues to help fund the acquisition, and is seeking a further $500-$600 million from an overseas equity issue. 
     
Investors have been rattled by the hefty fundraising plans, a bleak outlook for commercial ve hicle sales and cost overruns on the Nano plant to more than 20 billion rupees ($460 million) from an earlier estimate of 17 billion rupees. 
     
Tata Motors expects to start trial production of the Nano, which it plans to price at around $2,500, in July or August, and was making every effort to roll out the car around October, before the start of India’s festival season. 
     
The plants for the Nano would be expanded to meet demand in domestic and international markets, Tata said, and variants were being developed to meet new environmental and fuel price challenges.

(Editor: Haijing Qu)