Renault hopes the new Logan sedan will help it achieve annual sales of four million vehicles by 2010.

The launch of the car comes as Renault seeks growth outside its core western European markets.

The Logan will be built by Dacia, a loss-making Romanian subsidiary of the French firm.

Renault said the Logan, part of the company's X90 family of vehicles, would be launched in Romania in September and exported to eastern and central European countries and the Middle East.

'It's not a Lada'

Renault also intends to make the car available in other countries, including Russia, Colombia, Morocco, Iran and possibly China.

The Logan will have few of the extra gadgets featured on most western European cars.

But chairman Louis Schweitzer insisted the Logan could not be compared to much-ridiculed Communist-era cars, such as Russia's Lada.

"The Logan is not just a new Lada. It's a modern car with modern parts," he said.

Mr Schweitzer said: "We realised that our target to sell four million cars per year by 2010 could only work if we undertook rigorous expansion outside western Europe... We had to go find the growth."

Renault expects sales of the X90 series to total around 700,000 units a year.