Automobile market leader Maruti Udyog Ltd has decided to stay away from acquiring any assets of beleaguered Daewoo Motors India, which is up for sale.

"We will not take part in the bidding process for taking over assets of this company," said the managing director of MUL, Jagdish Khattar.

DMIL was put on the block after it failed to repay debt aggregating to Rs 1,100 crore (Rs 11 billion) to IDBI, ICICI and Exim Bank.

The Debt Recovery Tribunal has invited bids from prospective buyers, which would be opened on December 19.

"We have decided on the matter and have taken a decision of not bidding for any portion of the assets of the company," he added.

Auto sector analysts had indicated that MUL could be interested in either DMIL's engine or gearbox facilities, along with its sophisticated machinery. These have a capacity of 300,000 units each.

MUL at one point in time was considering an investment in a gearbox facility in India but this has been postponed.

MUL strategy to stay away from bidding for DMIL suggests that it will definitely not enter these activities except with its own plant. The ready state-of-art facility of Daewoo may now be hard pressed to find takers.

Khattar also said that an aluminium foundry unit that was being set up in conjunction with Suzuki Motor Corporation of Japan was slated to commence production in July next year and the both the companies had invested around Rs 180 crore (Rs 1.8 billion) in the venture.

On the issue of buying regassified LNG from Gas Authority of India Ltd Khattar said, "Our team working on it and we will surely come to a solution in a few weeks time."

Meanwhile, Maruti launched its Car Finance in eastern India with eight finance partners.

This would provide a bouquet of products along with insurance and various other value added products.

On the export front Khattar said Alto was a runaway success in the European markets and Netherlands.

"Out of a total export target of 32,000 vehicles as many 24,000 vehicles would be Alto," he informed.

The vehicle was in fact receiving a rebate of Euro 1000 from the government of Netherlands because of its fuel efficiency, Khattar added.

On the issue of market share he said, “We hope to retain our market share of 50 per cent, for their was negative growth in the first few months which has picked up lately.”