New Delhi, Jan 29 – Japan’s Suzuki Motor Corp said Tuesday that it will set up a wholly owned subsidiary for automobile production in the western Indian state of Gujarat in April, Japan’s Jiji Press reported.
The new company, Suzuki Motor Gujarat Private Ltd, will build a plant with an initial annual capacity of 100,000 units in the state. The new factory is slated to start production in 2017.
Total investment is estimated to reach some 50 billion yen (RM1.6 billion). Suzuki Senior Managing Officer Naoki Aizawa will serve as president of the new company.
Vehicles to be produced at the plant will be sold through Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, an existing Suzuki subsidiary in the South Asian country.
Maruti Suzuki will expand its sales network while continuing automobile production.
At a press conference in New Delhi, Suzuki President and Chairman Osamu Suzuki said that Maruti Suzuki’s annual automobile sales in India have topped one million units.
In order to raise the figure to 1.5 million units and further to two million units, Maruti Suzuki needs to double the number of its sales outlets, he said. While the planned new unit will focus on production, Maruti Suzuki will shift more of its focus to marketing, he said, adding that the two Indian subsidiaries and the parent in Japan will unite to bolster the group’s business in India.
– Bernama
