"We are carrying out a study to ascertain the market needs and a multi-utility vehicle will probably be Hyundai's third vehicle in the country," Hyundai Motor India managing director YS Kim said on Thursday.

The chaebol, which launched its small car Santro on September 23, is planning a mid-size car by October next year based on its popular Accent model.

"Our second car for India will be launched by October 1999, for which production will begin by April next year," Kim said after flagging off a fleet of 78 mobile service cars at the the manufacturing facility here.

The specially-equipped mobile-service cars will be based in 55 cities, where the company has established a network of 70 dealers.

Kim, however, said the mid-size car will not be an exact replica of Accent but would be a new version witha lot of "India-specific' features.

Codenamed "LC-I", the car, which will have sleeker looks on the lines of the new Mercedes E-Class, will come in petrol as well as diesel versions. Hyundai Motor India, which has already invested over Rs 2,500 crore at its manufacturing facility, proposes to infuse another Rs 1,680 crore for its second phase of operations, Kim said.

The second phase will commence in 2003 and by that time, annual production capacity would be increased to two lakh from 1.2 lakh.

Setting up of a research and development (r&d) centre at the plant site was the most important project during the second phase, kim said. All the future vehicles for the country would be designed and developed in india itself once the r&d centre was set up, he added.

Asked about hyundai's proposed public issue, kim said the company would certainly take the equity route though such a move would largely depend on its short-term performance.

Refuting reports that the directorate general of foreign trade (dgft)had questioned hyundai's claim of 70 per cent indigenisation, kim said: "anybody at anytime is welcome to carry out an investigation at our plant."

Hmil had already written to dgft clarifying the company's stand in this regard but the dgft is yet to respond, he added. (more) pti vk tss csr bpd 10011234 b

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The company has already brought in 14 korean companies to india for sourcing components and the total vendor base consists of 60 companies located at the plant site itself.

On the prospects of santro, he said hmil was unfazed with the emerging competition in the small car segment, which is all set to hot up further with the launch of daewoo's "matiz" and telco's "indica".

Hmil hopes to sell over 20,000 cars by the end of the current financial year, he said, adding that the break even volume was 50,000 cars. On the marketing strategies for santro, kim said hmil might resort to exchange offer schemes in due course of time, if market conditions warranted such a measure.