India's largest automobile company Tata Motors is exploring the possibility of setting up a manufacturing plant for Jaguar and Land Rover in Saudi Arabia, the Gulf kingdom's industry minister said Thursday.
Addressing an India-Saudi Arabia Business Forum meeting here, Saudi Arabia Commerce and Industry Minister Tawfig Fawzan Alrabiah said the proposed plant would be the third largest for manufacturing of high-end Jaguar and Land Rover cars.
The minister said the plant is proposed to be set up eastern province of Saudi Arabia.
The forum meeting was organised jointly by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and the Council of Saudi Chambers.
Alrabiah said Tata Group's other companies including Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Tata Steel are also having significant business engagements with Saudi Arabia and have shown commitment to expand it further.
Tata Steel won an order in last year to supply high-quality rails for a new high speed rail line linking the two holy cities of Makkah and Al Madinah, the minister said.
He pointed out that Tata Consultancy Services recently launched an "all female services center" in Riyadh in collaboration with General Electric, and Saudi Aramco.
Addressing the forum meeting FICCI president Sidharth Birla said India and Saudi Arabia need to explore fresh frontiers of cooperation in sectors like IT and IT enabled services, auto components, automobiles, petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, oil and gas, refineries and metals, with a view to diversify the trade basket.
Saudi Arabia is India's fourth largest partner with bilateral trade of over $43 billion in 2012-13. Saudi Arabia is also India's largest crude oil supplier accounting for about one-fifth of total imports in 2012-13.
