The Star Business: SOURCE

Tuesday January 11, 2011

Proton in talks to assemble vehicles in India

By EUGENE MAHALINGAM eugenicz@thestar.com.my

PETALING JAYA: Proton Holdings Bhd has not ruled out the possibility that it is in talks with Indian automobile manufacturer Hindustan Motors to assemble its vehicles for the Indian market.
“We are in talks with several parties in India. Right now, it's still too early to comment,” group managing director Datuk Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Mohamed Tahir told StarBiz yesterday.

He was responding to a report by The Times of India that Proton was close to tying up with Hindustan Motors for a contract manufacturing agreement to assemble its cars for the Indian market.
When asked if Hindustan Motors was one of the parties that Proton was in talks with, Syed Zainal said: “I think that can be implied.”

Hindustan Motors is known for its Ambassador car that is widely used as a taxi and government limousine.
In its report on Saturday, the Indian English-language daily reported that Proton was close to tying up with Hindustan Motors, adding that a decision was likely to be announced by end-February.

The report said Proton was in favour of using Hindustan Motors' Chennai plant, set up for assembling the Mitsubishi Lancer, to locally produce its Exora multi-purpose vehicle.

“Top Proton executives have visited the Chennai plant of Hindustan Motors on several occasions in the past three months.

“According to top sources in the Chennai component industry, Proton is interested in sourcing engine and transmission systems from Hindustan Motors' group company Avtec,” The Times of India reported.
Last week, Syed Zainal announced that Proton was looking at offering the Saga, Persona, Exora and Emas hybrid models in India.

He said the national carmaker would do so by tapping the experience of an Indian original equipment manufacturer that already had a plant and was assembling its own vehicles.  Syed Zainal said that an announcement on this would be made by this quarter.

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