DaimlerChrysler AG said it plans to sell its 10.5-percent stake in Hyundai Motor Co., though both companies will continue a strategic alliance, news agencies reported Thursday. The projects that remain between the two companies include the cooperative World Engine Project, a new-generation 4-cylinder development and manufacturing project that also includes Japanese automaker Mitsubishi, as well as various joint procurement activities. The project is still expected to start production in 2005 and create 500 jobs by 2006. Hyundai, which plans to start making autos at a plant in Montgomery, Ala., next March, has more than doubled its U.S. sales since 1999. It forecasts sales in the United States will rise 7.4 percent to 430,000 units this year as it adds the new Tucson sport-utility vehicle in the second half. Sales through April, however, were down 3.6 percent. The joint announcement of the stock sale comes less than three weeks after DCX's supervisory board scuttled a proposal to back a $6.4-billion bailout of Japanese partner Mitsubishi Motors Corp.
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