Hota Lands Major Order From European Diesel-engine Maker

Taipei, Feb. 13, 2009 (CENS)--Hota Industrial Manufacturing Co., Ltd., a major automotive transmission system and gear maker in Taiwan, recently announced its winning a three-year, big-ticket order for diesel-engine gears from Deutz AG, the largest diesel-engine maker in Europe.

The Taiwan company revealed the order value as 24.6 million euro, and it would start shipment in October this year.

In addition to Deutz, Hota just won a five-year order for over one million planet-gear assemblies from Punch Motive of Belgium, a subsidiary of the world's largest agriculture equipment maker John Deere of the United States, with Hota scheduled to begin shipment to the Belgian customer in July.

A senior Hota executive pointed out that Punch closed its in-house gear production lines to outsource such product from Hota, with Punch expected to become Hota's second-largest customer by 2011 and keep Hota's operations humming meanwhile.

Punch supplies continuous variable transmission (CVT) systems to automakers in different continents, Hota said, and in mainland China alone over 14 automakers are expected to adopt Punch's transmissions in the future.

David Shen, Hota chairman, is very optimistic about corporate operations in the next three years. Currently, he stressed, Hota's top priority is to improve financial structure and lower debt ratio, as well as replenish its operating funds.