Daewoo financed industrialization, and provided protection from competition to the chaebol in exchange for a company's political support. In the beginning, the Korean government instigated a series of five-year plans under which the chaebol were required to achieve a number of basic objectives. Daewoo did not become a major player until the second five-year plan. Daewoo benefited from government-sponsored cheap loans based on potential export profits. The company initially concentrated on labor-intensive clothing and textile industries that provided high profit margins because of South Korea's large and relatively inexpensive workforce. The third and fourth of the five-year plans occurred from 1973
Daewoo LeMans car market in 1996. It was replaced there by the Lanos in the autumn of 1997, by which time some 40,000 examples had been sold. In Romania, manufacturing began in 1996, at the newly acquired Daewoo Automobile Romania factory in Craiova, being the first Daewoo model produced at the plant. It was offered only with the sedan body style, and was exported to most countries in Central and Eastern Europe. The GLE version, which was the full option model, included air conditioning, power steering, front and rear electric windows, fog lamps, central locking, tachometer and a cassette player stereo system.