National

BMW to set up plant in Tamil Nadu
BMW has sought permission from the Indian government to set up a US$ 40 million manufacturing plant in Tamil Nadu. A proposal from BMW AG and BMW Holdings BV is awaiting clearance from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board, according to the Indian Finance Ministry website. It said the plant would assemble three and five series cars from knocked down kits, and import fully builtup units. An earlier attempt at Indian car market entry in the late 1990s was to have taken the form of a joint venture with the Indian Hero group, which builds Hondas in the country, but BMW's proposed investment was below the minimum prescribed under the Government's policy. BMW also attempted a separate JV with Hero to market its motorcycles in India, but success was denied after they met price resistance. The southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu is also home to assembly operations of Ford and Hyundai.

Production halts at Honda’s Manesar plant
Motorcycle production has been suspended at the Manesar plant of Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI), which is in the midst of a major labour unrest. The company sells only one model motorcycle in India, the 150-cc 'Unicorn'. Since its launch last year, the model, which primarily competes with Bajaj's 'Pulsar' model, received encouraging response in the market. “The production of Unicorn was stopped on June 27, when production levels were severly hampered due to the ongoing strike," according to V Sridhar, General Manager (Manufacturing), HMSI. The profitable HMSI, a whollyowned subsidiary of Japan's twowheeler major Honda Motor has scooters as its mainstay in India and is credited with reviving the sagging sales of the scooter market. The strike, due to which the company has suffered losses to the tune of Rs 100 crore, has seen production levels going down in a big way.

JK hogs limelight
India's largest tyre maker has just completed a major landmark in the industry. Raghupati Singhania, CEO and MD, JK Tyre, (the pioneers of radials in India) rolled out the company’s millionth truck/bus radial tyre from his Mysore plant. Simultaneously, to go with the tremendous growth expected in the automobile sector, the company is investing another Rs 60 crore in the plant. With this investment, JK Tyre hopes to take the per-day production from 750 tyres to 1,000. The company currently enjoys around 85 per cent market share in truck radials and hopes that this decision will help them in their future endeavour. .........CONTD

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