PROTON LAUNCHING PERSONA CNG IN THAILAND

By D.Arul Rajoo

BANGKOK, Oct 6 (Bernama) -- Phranakorn Auto Sales, which is Thailand's Proton distributor, will be launching the new Proton Persona CNG here Tuesday.

It will be the fourth Proton model entering the Kingdom since Proton made
its debut here at the end of last year with the Savvy, Gen-2 and Satria Neo
models.

A Phranakorn executive said this would be the first Persona model to be
fitted with pre-installed compressed natural gas (CNG) kits and likely to
attract car buyers looking for energy-saving models due to the high oil
price.

The Persona model, a winner of the Frost and Sullivan 2008 Best Model of
the Year, has received bookings of more than 54,000 units to-date in Malaysia
since its launch in August 2007.

Proton made its entry into the Japanese manufacturers dominated Thai market
at the end of 2007, bringing in the three models, taking advantage of the low
five percent import duty imposed under the Asean Free Trade Area (Afta)
agreement.

During the launch in 2007, Savvy was priced from 399,000 baht, making it
the
cheapest car on the road in Thailand while the Neo and the Gen.2 were priced
from 499,000 baht and 549,000 baht respectively.

Currently, Savvy is Proton's most popular model in Thailand, accounting for
about 50 percent of all sales, followed by the Gen-2 with 30 percent and the
rest Neo.

Proton has increased its sales target from 2,000 units to 5,000 units for
2008, with the first-quarter sales reaching 1,500 units.

But since March, Savvy has been getting fierce competition from
Malaysia-assembled Naza Forza which entered the market with a price tag of
349,000 baht, almost 50,000 baht lower than Savvy.