Germany's Bosch Group expects 3-5% growth in 2014

Germany's leading technology company Bosch Group announced on Wednesday that it expected a growth of 3 to 5 percent in sales in 2014. Bosch disclosed at an annual press conference held here that the sales of the company increased by roughly 7 percent during the first months of this year. "We continue to move forward with our traditional business and are opening up new fields of business. In so doing, we are benefiting from our broad technological and industrial expertise," said Volkmar Denner, chairman of the Bosch board of management. "Business in Asia Pacific is developing especially well," said Stefan Asenkerschbaumer, Chief Financial Officer at Bosch Group. Asia continues to be Bosch's number one growth region, said a press release. The company also reaffirmed that it aimed to double its sales in Asia by 2020. Bosch Group will have invested some 3.3 billion euros (4.6 billion U.S. dollars) in the region from 2010 to 2014. The Bosch Group reported a modest increase of sales in the fiscal year 2013. Sales increased by 3.1 percent to 46.1 billion euros. The positive developments in the Automotive Technology business sector made a significant contribution to the improvement in result, Bosch Group said. (1 euro = 1.38 U.S. dollars)