Tokyo - Japanese automaker Hino Motors Ltd and major trading company Marubeni Corp announced a joint venture Tuesday to sell vehicles in India.

Singur, Sept 2: The shutdown at the TATA Motor's manufacturing plant in Singur continued for the fifth day today.

The management says conditions are not conducive for work, even as the Trinamool Congress sponsored protest entered its tenth consecutive day.

Meanwhile, the movement of vehicles on the Durgapur Express Highway was also less this morning.

On Monday, Trinamool Congress leader Partha Chatterjee met West Bengal Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi following the latter's initiative to resolve the deadlocked over Singur issue.

India’s largest car maker Maruti Suzuki has reported 9.19% decline in sales during August, this year at 59,908 units as against 65,968 units in the same month last year.

In a statement released today, the company said that its domestic sales stood at 54,113 units compared to 60,229 units in the same month a year-ago, which indicates a fall of 10.15%.

However, company’s exports grew marginally at 5,795 units as against 5,739 units in the same period, last fiscal.

The A2 segment comprising Alto, Zen Estilo, Swift and WagonR registered a decline of 9.75%. The sales stood at 37,667 units as against 41,736 units for the corresponding period of last year.

Top car maker Hyundai Motor India is all set to develop its proposed small car with an 800 cc engine for the Indian market.

Hyundai's 800cc car would be rolled out in the next three to four years, a company official said.

Hyundai’s plan is to launch this model directly against Maruti Suzuki’s popular Maruti 800 model, with an ambition to come out as India’s biggest car manufacturer.

General Motors (GM) has decided to invest $200 million (about Rs 870 crore) for engine, gearbox and transmission project. The engine project would be set up in Talegaon near Pune, Maharashtra.

The company has recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the state government of Maharashtra. GM is the largest manufacturer of automobiles in the world with strong presence in almost all developed countries.

The proposed power train project would have an annual production capacity of 160,000 units and it would be completed by 2010.

New Delhi - Work at the Tata Motors factory in eastern India that is producing the world's cheapest car, the Nano, came to a standstill on Friday after the company's employees were threatened by demonstrators demanding return of farmland acquired for the project.

Thousands of farmers and political activists have laid a siege around the factory in Singur near West Bengal's state capital Kolkata since Sunday.