SkodaAuto to send cars to Bangladesh

SkodaAuto India plans to dispatch cars from its Indian manufacturing plant to Bangladesh next month. Skoda's export plans come in the wake of a capacity expansion at its plant, which is to serve as the manufacturing hub for its South Asia interests.

Imran Hassen, Skoda India's managing director, said the company planned to put in place dealerships in Bangladesh and Nepal. The geographical expansion is to be supported by doubling capacity of its plant in Shendra, near Aurangabad, to 30,000 units a year.

Hassen, who was in Chennai in connection with the opening of a new dealership, declined to disclose the investment that would be made to expand capacity. He described investments as an "ongoing decision."

The enhanced capacity will be designed to meet the needs of the technology used in the company's forthcoming car launches. Hassen said that the new capacity would not be used for Skoda's existing Octavia range of vehicles.

Skoda has lined up three vehicle launches this year. One of them would be a "very new product," said Hassen. He added that this would use a different platform and the technology in the car would be new to India. The other two launches in the year would be a diesel version of its flagship vehicle, Superb (ex-showroom price of Superb's petrol version is Rs 23.38 lakh).