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...at an ever faster pace from western Europe to central and eastern Europe. This is generating a demand for fast, flexible transport services. The recent eastward enlargement of the EU will accelerate this trend. Consequently, the demand for high-quality trucks is increasing all the time. Local manufacturers cannot keep pace technologically. We have seen this in countries like Poland, the Czech Republic and Russia – countries where Scania has a strong position today. The flow of used trucks is also contributing to rapid growth for our service business in the new EU member countries and elsewhere in eastern Europe. Now a few words about East Asia – a very expansive region, especially China. Demand for our type of vehicles is limited, however. The reason is that logistics systems and road networks are not yet as developed as in Europe and the United States. The market for western European heavy vehicles is no larger than 4,000–5,000 units per year. In China, we are now building up a sales and service organisation, with the aim of making it a long-term, profitable business. When the time is ripe and the volume is sufficiently large, we may conceivably establish vehicle manufacturing there. Our objective is to become a major player in China over time. Our alliance with Japan’s leading truck company, Hino, is continuing. In partnership with Hino, Scania was the first non-Japanese make to receive type approval for the Japanese market. We can now intensify our efforts in Japan. Our co-operation with the Japanese marine engine manufacturer Yanmar developed well, and the first engines have been delivered. During 2003 we initiated an alliance with the German-based MAN which covers development and manufacture of certain types of axles and gearboxes. Out in the markets, we are continuing to expand our vehicle and service business. In mature markets in western Europe, Scania owns a sizeable proportion of the sales and service organisation. In this way, we have direct contact with our demanding customers, who today not only buy a vehicle but also service and financing over a period of three to five years. This direct contact is important to our product development work, both when it comes to vehicles and various services. In other markets, an independent sales and service network handles customer contact. Today we actually have more employees in our own service organisation than we have in our manufacturing network. And looking ahead, this is where we will mainly be expanding our organisation. Our strategy is to give customers high revenues and low operating costs. This is the basis for good margins for us as suppliers of both vehicles and service. In recent years, we have also built up a significant customer financing network. Financial services are an important element of Scania’s complete product range. We have our own finance companies in most important markets. Now a few words about our production. For a number of years, we have been developing our own production concept, which is based on Scania’s core values: putting the customer first, respect for the individual and quality in products and services. In the Scania Production System – SPS – the focus is on people, not machines or computers. We have made good progress in implementing this system, and we are seeing great dedication from our employees. We also see in our statistics that absences due to illness have declined sharply. In addition, the number of accidents has fallen substantially. And employee turnover remains low. Quality and productivity have also improved. We can speak of a win-win situation for all of us. Since we work in the same way and with the same quality standards throughout our organisation, we have now been able to fully integrate our production network in Latin America with the one in Europe. A Scania always maintains the same high quality, regardless of where it is built. Last year more than 4,000 vehicles - half of production volume - were delivered from São Paulo to markets outside Latin America. In recent years we have gradually restructured our European production network. Component manufacturing, which requires heavy investments, has been concentrated at one site per component. Scania’s component manufacturing in Europe now takes place in Sweden. Engine manufacturing is now gathered in Södertälje, axles in Falun, gearboxes in Sibbhult, frame members in Luleå and cabs in Oskarshamn. This means that about a thousand skilled industrial jobs have moved to Sweden. Final assembly, in which the logistics cost is high, should be located as close to the customer as possible. This is why the expansion of our assembly operations has occurred in Zwolle, the Netherlands and in Angers, France. Seven months ago, we inaugurated the expanded and modernised assembly plant in Zwolle. There we have expanded our technical assembly capacity by 50 percent, to more than 150 trucks per day. This expansion is an important step to ensure that we can supply the higher volume needed in the next economic upturn. Now a few words about buses and coaches. Sales of bus chassis during 2003 were the highest in Scania’s history. The total market for heavy buses in Europe declined, but Scania increased its sales in several of the major markets. In Latin America, too, bus and coach deliveries rose. Scania was also awarded the prestigious “Coach of the Year 2004” prize. A large proportion of a bus chassis consists of truck components, and with our new bus and coach business structure, today we can take advantage of all the synergies that exist with trucks when it comes to development and production but also when it comes to service. As a result of the restructuring of bus and coach operations that we have implemented, these operations are well on their way towards achieving the same profitability as trucks. Ladies and gentlemen, Scania focuses on heavy trucks and buses with a modular product concept - a toolbox - which enables the customer to specify exactly the vehicle he or she need...