Malaysia's national carmaker Proton Holdings Bhd has said that it intends to finalise discussions with a global equipment manufacturer within this quarter to set up contract assembly manufacturing operations in India.
"We know, India is an important market but to be successful, we need to work with a local OEM (in India). We have identified a company and have had many discussions," said Proton Holdings' group managing director Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Mohammed Tahir in a local newspaper report by The Star.
OEM is a company that purchases components made by a another company for use in its products.
He said Proton was hoping to engage in contract assembly manufacturing via a joint venture effort with the OEM.
"Another aspect is in terms of sales and marketing. We hope to incorporate our own subsidiary that would work with a local partner to distribute cars in India. All of this will hopefully be finalised by the first quarter of this year."
He added that it was imperative that the local partner in India "already had a plant and assembling its own cars."
"We don't have the experience. We need a local partner (for the experience)," he said, adding that Proton was looking at offering its models--Saga, Persona, Exora multipurpose vehicle (MPV) and Emas hybrid in India.
"The market in India is for small cars, namely the A and B segment cars as well as MPVs. We have already identified the products that would be there," Syed Zainal also said Proton was looking at offering vehicles with diesel engines that would be developed with a European manufacturer.
