Tata Motors enters Pakistan through Korean arm

Tata Motors enters Pakistan through Korean subsidiary Tata Motors, India's largest automobile firm, announced on Friday its entry in Pakistan through its subsidiary Tata Daewoo Commercial Vehicle Co with the commissioning of a new truck and bus assembly unit in Karachi.

The company said in a statement its South Korean venture TDCV has entered into a technical assistance pact with Afzal Motors (Pvt) Ltd of Pakistan to assemble trucks and buses.

The plant has a capacity to produce 3,000 vehicles a year and would assemble heavy-duty trucks of TDCV and buses from the Daewoo Bus Company, South Korea. Afzal Motors has already begun sourcing knocked down sets of TDCV trucks, it said.

In 2007-08, TDCV trucks are expected to garner a market share of about 30

per cent in Pakistan, it said. The Prime Minister of Pakistan, Shaukat Aziz, formally inaugurated the plant, in the presence of senior management of TDCV and Afzal Motors, it said.

TDCV is a 100 per cent subsidiary of Tata Motors and is the second largest manufacturer of heavy-duty trucks in South Korea, with a modern manufacturing facility at Gunsan.

It is also the largest exporter of heavy-duty trucks from South Korea, accounting for about two-thirds of the export of such vehicles from the country.

In 2005-06, TDCV posted a turnover of Rs 1,584 crore (Rs15.84 billion), a growth of 34.5 per cent and a profit of Rs 58 crore (Rs 580 million), a growth of 160 per cent, the statement said.