Chennai: Commemorating the completion of 10 successful years of partnership between the Volvo Group and Eicher Motors, VECV has announced plans to set up a new greenfield truck manufacturing plant at Bhopal.
A release said the Madhya Pradesh government has allotted land for the new plant and work to set up this plant is expected to start soon.
The target, according to VECV, is to go on stream with this plant in the next 18 months at an investment of around Rs 400 crore and an initial capacity of 40,000 trucks; in addition to the capacity of 90,000 trucks at Pithampur, near Indore.
The joint venture has put VECV in a position with a yearly average growth of over 18 per cent in last ten years with turnover of Rs 10,200 crore in 2017-18.
Speaking on the occasion, president and CEO, Volvo Group, Martin Lundstedt, said, “It is a proud moment for us as we celebrate an extremely successful partnership with Eicher Motors. Together we have created many industry-leading benchmarks to drive modernization in the last 10 years.India is a home base for Volvo Group, with a presence of over two decades across our various business lines and we reiterate our strong commitment to the future of the country and VE Commercial Vehicles.”
MD and CEO, Eicher Motors Ltd, Siddhartha Lal, said, “The partnership with Volvo has been extremely fruitful for VECV that is reflected in its strong performance in the last decade. VECV is today a full range player in four to 55 Ton GVW (gross vehicle weight) market. Not only VECV has benefited from this partnership, at the same time, we have been able to contribute to the cost-reduction opportunities for the Volvo Group through supply of cost-effective engines from India. As we move into the next decade, we reiterate our strong commitment to this partnership.”
VECV is today an exclusive manufacturing hub for the medium-duty Euro VI engines for the Volvo Group and is afine example of the “Make in India” initiative of the Government of India. These engines, manufactured at the state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Pithampur, are being exported to Europe and Asia to take care of the needs of the Volvo Group.