Chinese heavy duty truck manufacturer Sinotruk has partnered with Hyderabad-based Overland Trucking for promoting its range of trucks and technology for the Indian market. As part of this, Overland is also planning to set up an assembly plant for Sinotruck in Telangana.
The Chinese company’s portfolio consists of heavy duty, medium and light trucks, buses, special purpose trucks and military trucks. The investment for the proposed assembly plant is expected to be anywhere between Rs100 crore-R50 crore.
Sinotruk is China’s first heavy duty truck manufacturing company. It has eight overseas assembly plants with manufacturing capability of 40,000 units of heavy duty trucks. The company launched its range of mining trucks for the Indian market through its partner, Overland Trucking. “We are seeing a lot of momentum in the mining and infrastructure sector in India. We see huge opportunities for our exclusive mining trucks and are open to set up an assembly plant in Telangana,” Rajashekar Ailneni, director, Overland, said.
“At present, we are negotiating with the Telangana government for about 20 acres of land. If we get approvals in time, then the plant is likely to be operational by end of 2016,” he said. “We have started our India foray with two range of trucks but we intend to bring the entire portfolio of trucks,” Zhang Houquin, president, Asia-Europe division, Sinotruk, said.
“Currently, the trucks are fully imported which carries customs duty of over 70%. The proposed assembly plant will help to reduce the cost and maximise the local content,” he said.
Source: Financial Express