Volkswagen said on Thursday it increased output at its Slovak plant by 45 percent in the first half of 2011 compared with the same period a year earlier.
In the first six months of 2011, Volkswagen said the company assembled 94,600 cars in non-stop production at the Bratislava plant. This was a 45% increase from the first half of 2010.
"We expect the positive development to continue in the second half of the year," the company said, without giving a figure.
The carmaker, which produces the high-end Touareg, Audi Q7 and Porsche Cayenne models at the plant in the Slovak capital Bratislava, turned out 144,500 cars last year, up 36% from 2009.
Volkswagen also expects to launch production of small family cars later this year, following the example of its rivals in the former communist country -- South Korea's Kia Motors and France's PSA Peugeot Citroen, which weathered the global crisis by focusing on smaller cars.
Volkswagen exports virtually all the cars produced at its Slovak plant, with some 36% going to Germany and nearly 19% to China.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2011
