MG on target to drive into EU market

Chinese-owned MG UK is on course to hit the export trail to mainland Europe in left-hand drive markets.
[url=http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/all-about/longbridge, rubery and rednal]The Longbridge [/url]export drive is in the pipeline after MG took orders for 1,000 MG3s in just three months in a £9 million plus sales boom.
The Chinese firm is now poised to broaden its horizons in 2014 with likely initial launches in the Republic of Ireland, Cyprus and Malta, all left-hand drive markets.
The company would then look to expand further into the likes of Scandinavia and Benelux rather than launch in more high-profile markets such as Germany and Italy.

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/mg-target-drive-euro-market-6489536#comments

Comment 1 (saves me the trouble):

alan.tomkinson1
8:23 PM on 9/1/2014
When did Ireland, Cyprus and Malta switch to left hand drive cars? They drive on the left like us and the cars are right hand drive.

Some people use Left Hand Drive to mean driving on the left hand side of the road, the article is probably correct but it gets very confusing for everybody else   

Incidentally:

MG took orders for 1,000 MG3s in just three months

registered 2013 including demo and press cars: 210

If not one single additional order is taken for MG3 or MG6 all year, 2014 registrations would be ~800 or ~60% up on 2013, probably above 2012 also...

French report (www.leblogauto.com/2014/01/mg-uk-va-exporter.html) identifies Irish KIA importer K&C Autos as the Irish distributor and suggests exports to the Baltic countries - though isn't that phase 3 not mentioned in the English?

http://www.microsofttranslator.com/bv.aspx?from=fr&to=en&a=http://www.leblogauto.com/2014/01/mg-uk-va-exporter.html

In the past, BL has been workshops of CKD in Malta and Ireland. That of Dublin has even assembled a handful of MG B. On the side of the constructor, it does not confirm the rumor. Note that a dealer Kia in Dublin, K & C, claims to represent the brand in the Octagon on the island. It also displays its logo on its sign.

Short-term, the manufacturer would like to return in the Benelux and the Baltic countries. That would mean putting into production of cars in left-hand drive. These countries are small (so can be covered with a handful of agents) and without national constructor (therefore more open.)

Benelux has no car factories? What is Nedcar making nowadays, Mitsubishis? then Minis. Antwerp (Opel) has closed and IIRC Genk (Ford) is closing, but is there still a Volvo factory? The Audi A1 is from Brussels IIRC.

Phase 2 Scandinavia has disappeared from this story.

patpending wrote:and suggests exports to the Baltic countries - though isn't that phase 3 not mentioned in the English?

They are all still countries that presumably were not covered by MG-Rovers European distributer, wonder if there is still an issue there...

Not convinced they are all RHD though?

Windy wrote:

patpending wrote:and suggests exports to the Baltic countries - though isn't that phase 3 not mentioned in the English?

They are all still countries that presumably were not covered by MG-Rovers European distributer, wonder if there is still an issue there...

Not convinced they are all RHD though?

I believe it's a mistranslation. I have always seen "phase 3 - Eastern EU" as centred on Poland, and there is no mention of the Baltic states in the Birmingham Mail, rather "Scandinavia" (phase 2 with Benelux).

The three Baltic states were each one of the 15 states in the Soviet Union from 1944, and were occupied under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939 when the Soviet Union declared war, and again in 1944. Like every European country except the UK, Ireland, Cyprus and Malta, they are all LHD.

Rovers were sold in the Baltic states. I know the B*W dealer in Riga/Latvia used to sell them. I have found correspondence with Rover drivers from Lithuania and Latvia. We know there is a handful of fanatics in non-EU Belarus with ZRs, and that Belarus importer Greenbacks is based in EU Lithuania.

A lot of interest in MG from an area we might not expect...