Parent Co. announce recovery amidst cost-cutting measures.

The market is down in Barbados, but Nissan is still holding its own, says Nicholas Mackie, General Manager of Courtesy Garage, local agents for Nissan vehicles. His comments came hard on the heels of the news that parent company Nissan Motor Co., Japan's third largest had made a profit recovery, saying that its cost-cutting measures were bearing fruit. Mackie said from a Barbados point of view, it was style and price of the Almera which were hard for the competition to beat. It is roomy, has performance, reliable and most important - it is a Nissan. Our share of the local market is bigger than the parent company's share in Japan, a confident Mackie explained. It is no surprise, said Mackie, that Nissan is holding its in Barbados, a similar position is being enjoyed by the brand in the USA, where a new factory will soon be opened. He said it would be full size facility which will build the Infiniti and and the Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV). The brand is also doing well in Europe and as competition gets tighter, Nissan will get better. Customers are very smart and they shop around, the Courtesy Garage general manager declared. Debt-ridden Nissan, in which France's Renault SA has a 36.8 percent stake, is viewed as a model of foreign-led restructuring, staging a dramatic earnings rebound under a three-year "revival" plan crafted by President Carlos Ghosn, known as "Le Cost Killer". According to a Reuters poll of Tokyo-based analysts, Nissan is expected to incur about a 280 billion yen ($2.27 billion) group net profit in the year ended in March, beating the firm's own estimate of 250 billion yen made in November. This compared with a staggering loss of 684 billion yen scored in 1999/2000, its seventh money- losing year out of eight. Amid euphoria, widely dubbed the "Ghosn effect," Nissan shares hit a high of 890 billion yen in March before retreating to 825 yen. Nissan has shined in the auto sector, gaining 25 percent so this year, outperforming the key Nikkei 225 average's meagre gain of less than two percent. Nissan, which has been rapidly shedding non-core businesses, cutting capacity and weeding out its suppliers, has said that it would pay a seven yen dividend per share in 2000/01, resuming payouts for the first time in three years. Nissan's group operating profit is expected to triple to 255 billion yen in 2000/01, and is seen growing about 40 percent to 359 billion the following year, the Reuters poll showed. Analysts says the fate of Nissan earnings hinges on further cost cutting and how it can ride out a weakening U.S. market where it generates more than half its annual profits. "We've been cautious about Nissan's fundamentals, because they have lost a lot of truck share in the United States," said Lehman Brothers analyst Shu Nung Lee. "There is a little too much optimism (about Nissan)." Nissan at the moment is an obvious front-runner among the three in the race of whether and how fast foreign partners will steer troubled Japanese automakers back to prosperity. "The first step of restructuring is to cut costs and the second is introduce attractive models with reduced, competitive costs," said Daiwa Institute of Research analyst Masato Ogasawara. "Nissan is now entering the second phase, while Mitsubishi and Mazda have yet to complete the first one, and this explains the difference of their earnings," he said. Ogasawara said, however, the real battle will kick off in and after 2002, when synergy benefits from their cross-border alliances will start to take actual shape.