October 31 (SeeNews) - Romanian car manufacturer Automobile Craiova on Wednesday reported 2.1 million lei ($908,700/629,600 euro) in net profit for the first nine months of 2007, up from 82,657 lei profit a year earlier.
Revenue through September rose by an annual 42.23% to 7.78 million lei, the company said in an income statement to over-the-counter market RASDAQ, where it is listed.
Company officials were not immediately available to comment.
Automobile Craiova's shares closed unchanged at 23.1 lei on Wednesday.
Automobile Craiova is the owner of car maker and distributor Daewoo Automobile Romania, a former 49:51 joint venture of the Romanian government and South Korea's Daewoo Motor Co. Daewoo Automobile Romania was left without the assets of Daewoo Motor Co when General Motors bought the bankrupt South Korean car manufacturer in October 2002. The Romanian government bought the stake of its partner in the joint venture for $60 million (41.6 million euro) last year.
In September Romania signed a deal for the sale of 72.4% of Automobile Craiova to Ford Motor Company for 57 million euro. The European Commission opened earlier this month a probe into whether Romania had granted state aid in the privatisation of the car manufacturer and the sale of the company to Ford Motor.
Daewoo Automobile Romania sold 23,780 vehicles in 2006, up 15%.
(1 euro = 3.3356 Romanian lei)