Carmaker Ford on Monday flagged-off 1,200 of its Figo compact cars for export to South Africa, enforcing India?s story as a hub for auto manufacturning. The car will be produced at Ford?s plant in Chennai.

The company has received an initial booking of 5,000 units of Figo from its counterpart, Ford Motor Company of South Africa. The first consignment will reach South Africa in two weeks and will be distributed through 123 dealers across the African country.

Though the current order book is small, compared with other car makers, Ford India is set to explore the global markets (other than the US and Europe) with Figo, said Michael Bonegam, president and MD, Ford India.

Boneham said: ?It is an exciting time for us. Given the rising demand for compact cars worldwide, Ford India plans to accelerate its export strategy to not only enhance its business growth but also to further embellish India’s reputation as a major regional auto manufacturing hub.?

?We have an initial order bookings of 5,000 units which will be delivered over a period of a few weeks time and we hope to get more such orders in 2010. Not only we look at South Africa, we have also geared up to export to Asia Pacific and neighbouring countries or those emerging countries for such cars. We have identified two such emerging markets and we hope to export Figo there,” he added. He declined to give any specific numbers on the export front.

He further added: ?We have commenced the second shift effective today (Monday) to take the total production capacity to 140,000 units as against 100,000 units earlier. The company may go for third shift if the demand picks up from across the country as well as abroad.”

He said the initial booking orders will be equally shared by diesel as well as petrol variants.

However, being the leader in diesel technologies, Ford India hopes to sell more diesel versions than petrol one, he said. The exported Figos will be off 1.4L petrol and diesel variants with slight modifications, he said. The target audience there will be the youngsters, he added.

According to him, Ford India has got over 24,000 Figo orders so far and has delivered17,000 units. ?We have commenced the second shift today to augment the production capacity to meet both domestic and overseas demands,? he said. adding the company will be adding 1,000 workers in the near future.