Jaguar Land Rover is to start building 2000 vehicles a year in India.
The company announced on Tuesday it would start overseas production with the Land Rover Freelander 4x4, but Indian bosses made clear that other Land Rover and Jaguar models were set to follow.
The luxury and sports car company is now owned by giant Indian industrial conglomerate Tata, which also owns Corus Steel and Tetley tea.
But Jaguar Land Rover is rapidly becoming the “jewel in the crown” of the company, which bought the automaker for more than £1billion (R11.3 billion) and is spending as much again each year on investment in it.
Production of the Freelander in India is to start within weeks at Tata’s factory at Pune, about a four-hour drive from Mumbai in the west of the country.
Parts produced at Jaguar Land Rover’s factory at Halewood on Merseyside will be shipped to the subcontinent in “knocked down” form and assembled by an Indian workforce.
But company bosses stressed that the decision to build in India was a sign of expansion, not an attempt to export jobs to India to exploit cheaper labour. - Daily Mail