Gandhinagar/Ahmedabad: In what could be described as a major success for the Gujarat government, leading carmaker Ford India on Thursday announced an investment of Rs 4,000 crore for setting up car manufacturing and engine plants in Sanand. This is one of the biggest investments by Ford outside North America.
Ford India has finalised 460 acre site in Sanand, next to the Tata Nano plant, for setting up state-of-the-art vehicle manufacturing facility and an engine plant. The plants will have the initial capacity to produce 2.4 lakh cars and 2.7 lakh engines in a year. The twin facilities, expected to go on stream in 2014, will create 5,000 direct jobs and many more indirect jobs.
"We are very happy to be in Gujarat, the land of Gandhi. We are very impressed with the dynamic nature of the people here, and the pro-business government," Ford Asia Pacific and Africa President Joe Hinrichs told reporters. The plant in Gujarat is part of Ford's strategy to expand in India to cater to the fast-growing domestic car market as well as to cater to the international markets, he said.
Earlier, Ford India and the state government signed two MoUs for the Rs 4,000 investment, in Gandhinagar. The MoUs were signed by principal secretary of industries department, Maheshwar Sahu, and Michael Boneham, MD of Ford India, in the presence of Chief Minister Narendra Modi and Joe Hinrichs.
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