Maruti Suzuki’s managing director Hisashi Takeuchi on Sunday has hailed the Tata-Airbus project, stating that there is a huge business potential in India.
“India is a growing market & there is a huge business potential here. For most of the companies abroad, this is a good market to enter into. It is a wise decision for any company to come to India”, Takeuchi told ANI in Vadodara, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for a manufacturing facility of the Tata-Airbus consortium.
It happens to be the first aircraft manufacturing facility in the private sector and would build the C-295 aircraft. The move is aimed to modernise the Indian Air Force Fleet. The total cost of the project is said to be around ₹22,000 crore.
As per the Tata-Airbus deal, at least 16 C-295 aircraft are scheduled to be delivered between September 2023 and August 2025 in flyway condition. The remaining 40 aircraft will be manufactured in Vadodara.
The indigenous component in the planes will the highest ever in India, and the 96 per cent of the work that Airbus does in Spain will be carried out at the Vadodara facility.
The Maruti Suzuki MD also spoke on the bullet train project in Gujarat, expressing hope that it becomes a huge success. “Bullet train project in Gujarat is a very very important project. It’s a national project & Japan is strongly supporting it. I am hoping that it becomes a huge success”, he added.
He also outlined his company’s future plans in India. “We have expanded our Gujarat operations & in Haryana, we have started construction of our new factory”, he said on the day PM Modi laid the foundation stone of the Maruti Suzuki vehicle manufacturing facility for Haryana and the Suzuki EV battery plant for Hansalpur in Gujarat.
Takeuchi also hailed the Indo-Japan ties on this occasion. “We’re celebrating 70 years anniversary of India-Japan cooperation. We’ve a long history of progression between the two countries. The combination of these two cultures is a good match & will be strengthened further in future”, he said.