Speaking to The Financial Express HMI president AP Gandhi confirmed that exports of engine and transmission assembly for Accent model to Europe was in the offing. Accent, he said, is a world car and the Indian arm of HMC would contribute its bit by supplying whatever it can to other production centres around the globe.

This will be first time HMI will be exporting fully assembled engines and transmission equipment out of India. It has already established its quality by supplying engine and transmission components, body panels etc of both Santro and Accent to its parent plant in South Korea which, in turn, is fitted in vehicles that are ultimately exported to developed markets.

Acceptance of the parts by the international market has reinforced HMC's confidence on the quality of the Indian operation. It is now open to offering HMI a greater role in its global operations. This will also enable it to meet the capacity constraint it faces back home in Korea.

Though HMI is unwilling to disclose the exact destination of exports, it is learnt that the engines will find their way to Turkey where HMC is setting up a manufacturing facility. Exports will begin once this plant commences operations. Setting up of this plant has been affected by the recent earth quake which had delayed the schedule by a few months. `Accent' is one of the models that will be made at the Turkey plant and will be sold in entire Europe.

HMI has a capacity to produce 1.3 lakh engine and transmission assembly. The company has set a domestic sales target of 72,000 Santros and 6000 Accents this year. This leaves some spare engine production capacity which are presently utilised for exports. The existing capacity can also be increased to two lakh by increasing the percentage of automation.

Accent is powered by a 1495 cc 12 valve SOHC Hyundai Alpha engine with a five-speed manual transmission with overdrive. HMI, at the Auto Expo, had announced plans to roll out Accent with automatic transmission too.