Dar Es Salaam — Hyundai East Africa Limited has announced that it will start importing vehicles that use natural gas for the East African market.

Mr. Mehboob Karmali, the Managing Director for Hyundai East Africa Limited told Business Week last week that his firm had recently signed a deal with Hyundai Group of South Korea seeking to import vehicles that use natural gas in the country.

"We have signed a deal for importing brands made by the Hyundai Group in South Korea recently," Karmali said, adding that vehicles would be imported by the end of this year.

The development breaks just a few days after the Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC) announced the plan to have compressed natural gas for the vehicles in the country by year end.

A natural gas vehicle (NGV) is a vehicle that uses compressed natural gas (CNG) or, less commonly, liquefied natural gas (LNG)) as a clean alternative to other automobile fuels.

As of 2006, there were about 5 million NGVs worldwide with the largest number of GVs in Argentina, Brazil, India, Pakistan and Italy.

NGVs , also popular in Germany, have the advantage of being potentially refueled at home from existing natural gas lines with home refueling stations that tap into such lines.

Honda has pioneered such a system known as "Phill".

The company, already with a dealer, has plans of opening a new branch office in Mwanza, where they are currently scouting for a suitable location for the business. Other branches will be opened in Morogoro, Songea, and Ruvuma.

Hyundai East Africa is also planning to open new branches in Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda and Zambia.