Japanese car giant Nissan is looking to utilise its Indian production facility to export vehicles to more markets such as West Asia as overseas sales from its Thailand manufacturing base have come to a standstill in the wake of devastating floods in the nation.
Mr Toshiyuki Shiga COO of Nissan Motor Co told reporters at the Tokyo Motor Show that “We are studying to utilise capacities in India to export to other countries like the Middle East. There is a possibility of that.”
The company is currently recovering from the impact of the devastating floods in Thailand, he said, but added that there was no scope for augmenting exports based on existing capacity at Thailand.
Mr Shiga said that “Besides, our capacity in Thailand is full. Now there is no room to export from Thailand.”
The company has a joint manufacturing facility with its global partner Renault in Chennai, with an annual production capacity of 200,000 units. The two firms had committed an investment of INR 4,500 crore on construction of the plant, which will have a capacity to roll out 400,000 units per annum.
Mr Shiga said that “We have a big plant in Chennai... We are exporting a lot. With small car Micra, we will expand to more countries like the Middle East.”
He also said if India can provide competitive advantages in terms of suppliers and labour costs, then the country can export to many other locations.
He added that “Now Japan is losing its competitiveness, we are losing production volume in Japan. So we are shifting more to the growing markets like India.”
Source : steelguru.com