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INTRODUCTION:

TRENDS IN THE INTERNATIONAL MARKET:
The international motor vehicle production (including passenger cars, light vehicles, trucks and buses) reached all-time record levels just before the crisis by around seventy million units in 2006, 2007 and 2008. In 2009 the output dropped to 60 million that is almost the level prevailing in 2003. By 2010 it reached 77 million (26 per cent high on the 2009 figure, according to the data from OCIA, the International Organization of Motor vehicle manufacturers), another all-time high in the history of the automotive industry.

Worldwide production has grown at around 3 per cent annually over the past decade, but the performance differed significantly among the main areas. Undoubtedly, Trends in the international market the geography of the automotive industry has changed immensely in the recent years:
• United States and Japan who accounted for more than 40 percent of the world production in 1997 experienced their combine share falling to 22 per cent in 2010.

• In 2009 China surpassed Japan producing twice as many vehicles as Japan.
• 2009 marks the first year in the history of automotive industry where the emerging markets captured the industrial ones (North America, Japan, Western Europe) in terms of production; whose share has gone from slightly more than 25 percent to 57 per cent of which. In the period of 2000-2010, 29 million increase in production took place of which 16 million can be attributed to China alone.

• The proportion of car produced in the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) has increased to one in three in 2010 from less than one in ten previously.
If we consider emerging markets the “winners” during this period, the “losers” were those countries with stronger hold in the automotive production US (-5 million units), Canada (-0.9 million), Japan (-0.5 million); among the European markets France (-1.1 million), Italy (-0.9), UK (-0.4 million).

As a result of these trends the European market is suffering from excess capacity; Trends in the international market in Western Europe it can be estimated to be around 20-25 percent. In line with the premise of no further investments, the growth rate of 2-2.5 per cent would be insufficient to absorb the excess capacity in the Western Europe.
Almost 20 million vehicles were produced in Europe in 2010. However, the figure is substantially lower than the 23 million vehicles produced before the crises in 2007 though the production fell to 17 million units in 2008; it recovered in 2010

(almost +15 percent) remaining significantly below the pre-crises level along with the level a decade ago.
Production in United Kingdom faced a long-term decline; the factories of Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Tata Group ( which in 2008 acquired from Ford the brands Jaguar and Land Rover), BMW ( owners of the factory of Mini and Rolls Royce), and Opel (GM) are currently producing 1.4 million vehicles, in comparison to almost 2 million a decade ago (Ferrazzi, 2012).
TRENDS IN UNITED KINGDOM’S INDUSTRY:

Notwithstanding the stable development in demand, the industry will be experiencing structural changes that include a large portion of the built players near to the risk of default. In Europe, the elimination of MG Rover as the last British‐owned volume maker and the current years of problems at Fiat are some examples. Further exits of strong players remain exceedingly likely, a business sector space that will conveniently be loaded with…