Thursday, June 30, 2011
By Pranjal Gera
Ford to set up a plant in Sanand
Ford India is set to establish its second manufacturing plant in Sanand Taluka near Ahmedabad according to some official sources. The 400 acres land decided upon is right next to the Tata Nano’s plant.
According to a government official Ford India has been in talks with the State Government of Gujarat for setting up a Rs. 5000 crore manufacturing plant in Gujarat. A request from the Gujarat State Government was forwarded to Ahmadabad’s District Collector to assign 400 acres of land to Ford.
As announced in august last year, Ford is due to launch eight new models in the fastest growing Indian auto market in near future so they plan to increase their manufacturing capacity by opening a second plant. This is a planned to introduce global models into the Asian market. Ford has already put in $500 million in its Chennai Plant to expand its production capacity to twolakh cars per annum, which also includes the engine manufacturing plant with annual manufacturing ability of 2.5 lakh units. Ford plans another investment amounting to $72 million in a bid to extend its power train facility in Chennai plant and to hold up its sales and export expansion policy in India.
This will sum up to a total investment of $ 1 billion by Ford in India. Ford registered an increase of 71% as compared to last year with sales of 51,420 cars from January 2011 to may 2011. This month onwards, the export of Ford Figo to Bahrain and Kenya has commenced. The news however is not yet confirmed.
Last year after their exit from Singur, Tata Motors had set up a plant in Sanand for Tata Nano on a 1,100-acre land with an investment approximating to Rs. 2,000 crore. Maruti Suzuki also desires to set up a manufacturing plant in the heavily industrialized Gujarat state.
