Italy's Piaggio is to reintroduce the Vespa into India's two-wheeler market as part of a wider push into Asia after what will have been an absence of more than a decade.

The company yesterday said it would release its first scooters in India in 2010. It is aiming to tap into rapid growth in a market in which it was a dominant player until an earlier two-wheeler joint venture with India's LML collapsed in 1999.