Tata plans truck plant in Kishoreganj

Tata Group plans to join hands with Nitol Motors, its car distributor in Bangladesh, to set up a truck plant in Kishoreganj.
The facility will make 30,000-40,000 of its 'Ace' brand pick-ups a year, according to a report published in the Telegraph from Kolkata yesterday.
The report estimated such a manufacturing plant would cost about Rs 1,000 crore.
"What we are looking at is a core plant in Kishoreganj near Dhaka around which an ancillary industry will grow up," Telegraph quoted Matlub Ahmad, chairman of Nitol Niloy Group, the parent company of Nitol Motors, as saying.
Ahmed said his company is planning to sell about 12,000 trucks in Bangladesh, while the rest will be exported to India, Myanmar and other countries where engineering goods from Bangladesh have duty-free access, such as Turkey or other European nations.
Nitol runs a joint venture with the Tata that assembles vehicles of the Indian company at Jessore.
Nitol Motors sells about 700-800 Ace trucks a month in Bangladesh.
The proposed Kishoreganj plant will be a large-scale set-up with a supporting auto ancillary hub capable of exporting vehicles to India.
While the details of the joint venture are not yet clear, Tata will possibly settle for a 50:50 joint venture with Nitol.
Nitol and Tata Motors are also studying the possibility of assembling the Tata's Nano model in Bangladesh, but this "is not on the immediate radar," of the venture, the Telegraph added.
Earlier in April, Tata International signed a deal with Nitol to make cycles for the global market.