Chief Minister Anandiben Patel at the launch of Ford Aspire during the inauguration ceremony of new Ford plant in Sanand on Thursday. (Source: Express photo by Javed Raja) Chief Minister Anandiben Patel at the launch of Ford Aspire during the inauguration ceremony of new Ford plant in Sanand on Thursday. (Source: Express photo by Javed Raja)

Looking at tripling its exports in the near future, auto major Ford Motor Company on Thursday inaugurated its manufacturing facility in Sanand (second in India) and unveiled its new offering of a compact sedan car “Figo Aspire”, which will be the first car to roll out from here.

During the event, Ford officials said that the company is looking to establish India as an export hub for the company and triple its exports in the from the current 37 countries to 50 in the next five years.

“We are happy to be making in India for India and the world. We aim to triple our exports from India with both our Chennai and Sanand facilities.

The first vehicle we would be producing from here is a small sedan segment in the new Figo Aspire and in the next 5 years we aim to triple our exports to 50 countries from the current 37 countries that we are exporting to right now and pitch for India as a export hub,” said Mark Fields, Ford President and CEO of Ford Motor Company, who attended the event.

“We would be looking to launch three more products in the next 12 to 18 months. We want to create a centre of excellence for small cars here (India). While the plant has an initial installed annual capacity of 2,40,000 units, the engine plant will be able to produce 2,70,000 engines, which would bring Ford’s total manufacturing capacity in India to 610000 engines and 4,40,000 vehicles per annum,” he added.

Speaking at the event, Chief Minister Anandiben Patel said that the 125 kms belt combining Sanand – Hansalpur and Vithalapur with connected nodes of Kadi and Halol is on its way to be amongst the biggest automotive clusters in the Asia-Pacific region, making it the “Detroit of India in making”.

“I am delighted to see that with the launch of small cars, more Indians can afford a Ford…More than Rs 15,000 crore of investment has already being committed to create capacity for about 1.25 million passenger vehicles and 3 million two wheelers in 3-4 years here. An additional investment of Rs 15,000 crores is almost certain in 2017-18 from the likes of Maruti and Honda Cars.

This will take the capacity to about 2.2 million passenger vehicles in the region in the next 6-8 years. A similar kind of investment is expected from parts vendors with which about 100 are likely to set shop here…By 2020, Gujarat aims to achieve 10% of its engineering output from auto and auto components from current level of 3.7%,” Patel said.

While the company officials did not give a timeline on the commencement of commercial production at the Sanand plant, they said that half of the production of Sanand and Chennai plants combined would be for exports.

Nigel Harris, president & MD of Ford India said, “The commercial production of the new Sanand plant is a few months away. We would first be looking at India market and then touch exports later.

The new ‘Figo Aspire’ would be launched in the second half of this calendar year. With this plant, if we need to expand (capacity), then we can….We chose to come to Gujarat because it is close to the ports for export, so it made sense for us to be here.”

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