Bangalore: Automobile giant Tata Motors plans to launch in India the heavy-duty trucks manufactured at its Korean Daewoo Commercial Vehicle unit in a year to take on the Swedish truck maker Volvo, which has created this market segment in the country.

"We will be introducing the vehicles from the Daewoo plant in India in the next 12 months," Tata Motors executive director (Commercial Vehicles Business) Ravi Kant today (Jul 12, 2004) told reporters in Bangalore on the sidelines of the ninth International Symposium on Logistics.

He said Tata's would also simultaneously launch vehicles from the Daewoo unit in "select parts of the world".

Tata's early this year acquired for Rs 465 crore, the Daewoo unit in Korea that has capability to produce 200 to 400 Horse Power vehicles with capacity to haul over 40 tonnes.

"That's the intention", Kant said, when asked whether Tata's intended to compete with Volvo by launching the heavier vehicles produced at Daewoo.

He said Tatas introduced a new range of "Novus" vehicles in Korea, which will be brought to India later.

Earlier in his keynote address at the symposium, Kant said, Tatas bought the Daewoo unit for its ability to produce high value items and complemented the labour unions despite being "militant".

"India should learn a lot from them (labour unions)," he said, adding that Tatas were looking at assembling one of its vehicles in a foreign country to gain competitive advantage, but refused to elaborate.