French automaker Peugeot Citroen will set up its first manufacturing facility in India at Sanand in Gujarat with investment of Rs 4000 Cr. The company is likely to make an announcement after signing an MoU with the Gujarat government this week. It has denied in th past the rumours of setting up a plant in Tamil Nadu.
A senior official in the Chief Minister’s Office told Economic Times that Peugeot Citroen has zeroed in on Gujarat after exploring locations in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. An announcement is likely in three days, the official said. “A Peugeot delegation, including Gregoire Olivier, CEO (Asian operations) and Frederic Fabre, managing director of PSA Peugeot (India project), will be coming to Ahmedabad on Thursday to sign a memorandum of understanding for the car project,” he said.
This will be Peugeot’s re-entry in India after a decade. Earlier, it had a partnership with the Premier family and formed a joint venture Peugeot PAL India. It pulled out from the JV in 2001.
Now, the company plans to manufacture a sedan and a hatchback in Gujarat with a 3 lakh cars per annum capacity. The car models should be Peugeot 207 hachback & 508 sedan, as they were caught testing in Pune, earlier this month.
The site near Sanand is proposed to be developed as an national automotive hub after Gurgaon, Pune and Chennai by the industrial development arm of Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC). The Gujarat government has acquired 1,200 acres near Sanand, which is 40 km from Ahmedabad.
The first major automobile company to set up a unit in Gujarat in the last few years was Tata Motors, which inaugurated the mother plant of Nano, the world’s cheapest car, in Sanand in June, 2010.
US car maker Ford had last month announced an integrated facility, having both vehicle and engine manufacturing plants, at Sanand at an investment of Rs 4,000 crore.
India’s largest car manufacturer Maruti is in talks with the State Government to set up a plant in Gujarat, one of the most advanced industrialised states in the country.
