The company has bagged an order for exporting 100 Uno models to the Malaysian market. The first batch of 20 cars will be leaving the Indian shore latter this month, Ind Auto managing director G Ravina told The Financial Express.

Talks are at an advanced stage for export of Fiat models to Nepal, Sri Lanka and the Gulf countries, he added. The company will be exporting components of Uno to several countries including South Africa, Brazil, Turkey, Poland and Italy in the course of the year.

Fiat is moving the Uno die from Italy to India and plans to use Indian manufacturing facility to cater to worldwide demand for Uno and its components, officials said.

Thecompany would like to export the soon-to-be-launched station wagon to the United Kingdom market by end of next year, said Ravina.

Ravina said the company will launch either the Palio or the station wagon towards the end of the year. The decision on which will hit the market first will depend after the company studies the market condition more closely.Fiat plans to sell 25,000 vehicles in 1999-2000, of which 16,000 would be Uno and 7,000 Siena. The company had sold around 7,000 cars last year.The response to recently launched Siena model has been very good and the company has booked production orders for three months, officials said. The company plans to open booking for Siena later this month, they added.

The Siena presently has an indigenisation level of around 22 per cent. However, the company expects to raise this to 60 per cent by the end of the year, officials said. Indigenisation level may go up to 90 per cent by 2001.