Tata Motors to invest $43 mn in Thai plant

Tata Motors, India's biggest truck and bus maker, will invest 1.3 billion baht ($43 million) in a Thai factory to produce pickup trucks as economic growth boosts the country's demand for vehicles.

Production will start in March, with Tata targeting sales of 5,000 vehicles within the first year, Ajit Venkataraman, chief executive officer of Tata's Thai unit, told reporters in Bangkok today. The company is aiming for a 5 per cent share of the Thai pickup market within five years, he added.

New vehicle sales rose 3.3 per cent in Southeast Asia's biggest automobile market in the third quarter on the back of the country's economic growth. Tata will compete with Isuzu Motors, the biggest maker of pickup trucks in Thailand.

The plant has the capacity to build 35,000 trucks a year, Mumbai-based Tata Motors said. The venture is 70 per cent owned by Tata Motors and 30 per cent by Thonburi Automotive Assembly Plant Company. Tata's Managing Director Ravi Kant said in December last year that the unit will produce 30,000 vehicles annually after three years.

Southeast Asia's second-biggest economy expanded 4.9 per cent in the three months ended September 30 from a year earlier, compared with a 4.3 per cent gain in the second quarter, the government said on December 3.