Hyundai Motor Group head visits U.S. to assess market conditions

Hyundai Motor Group's global chairman left for the United States Tuesday to assess overall market conditions and review corporate strategies to help the carmaker capitalize on opportunities and deal with challenges in the coming months.

   The trip by Chung Mong-koo comes 15 months after his last visit to the world's second-largest new vehicle market, and is his third overseas tour of 2014.

   Earlier in the year, he inspected operations of Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Motors Corp. in Europe and China.

   "The global chairman will first go to Fountain Valley, California, the home of Hyundai Motor's headquarters for the U.S.

market to check up on sales figures for new cars and marketing strategies," the company said.

   It said Chung will then head to Hyundai Motor's assembly line in Alabama and Kia's operations in Georgia to check the quality of cars and laud local workers for their efforts.

   Hyundai and Kia posted strong sales coming into this year, but their growth has been hurt by an inability to meet demand due to constraints on the capacity of its two U.S. plants that are currently running on full shifts. Both the Alabama and Georgia plants have the capacity to churn out 300,000 cars annually.

   Hyundai and Kia also say they have not been able to expand sales vis-a-vis rivals because of the automotive group's policy on tightening quality control even if it places constraints on capacity. (Yonhap)