Now, Bengal on BMW’s investment radar

Electric cars and bikes and hybrid vehicles will rule the global automobile scenario in the next five years, said BMW experts on Tuesday. A delegation from Bengal led by state Finance Minister Amit Mitra, along with the Chief Secretary Basudeb Banerjee and principal secretary (Industry and Commerce) Krishna Gupta, visited the Munich plant of the global automobile giant. 

Top bosses of the century-old manufacturer of cars and bikes shared their experiences and spent three hours with them. They also made three presentations before the Bengal delegation. An expert was deputed to take the Bengal delegates around the factory.

Talking to media persons later, Mitra said that he was happy with the confidence building-measures (CBM) that were taken on Tuesday. He told the Germans that investment was steadily pouring into  Bengal and planned expenditure had gone up three times and capital expenditure had grown seven-fold. Bengal’s GDP is ranked fourth overall in the country. 

“They were unaware of this information and expressed satisfaction,” Mitra pointed out. He added that some of the participants of Tuesday’s meeting were provided insight on the automobile market in Asia, Asia Pacific and India, and had visited different parts of the country, including Kolkata where BMW has a showroom. BMW has a lone manufacturing unit in India at Chennai.

Mitra told BMW officials what the Bengal government could offer and presented the real picture of progress achieved in the state under Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. “We have been transparent in information sharing and now steps will be taken to foster a meaningful partnership in the future,” he remarked, adding that top bosses of the company wanted some clarifications on the information given to them. “They talked about Malaysia and Thailand and their experiences in those countries,” 

he said.

The minister said that the Germans were eager to know about the rapid strides made by Bengal in developing information technology. In electric and battery operated vehicles, software plays a vital role. “ IT Bengal has enormous scope and we had talks on this,” he said. Mitra was optimistic that BMW would invest in Bengal. “Investment is no magic and takes a long time,” he maintained.

BMW, short for Bavarian Motor Works, is a global leader in the automobile industry. The confidence of the manufacturer is reflected when it describes its vehicles as “the ultimate driving machine.” 

Over the years, BMW has grown in strength – acquiring the Rover Group which was later liquidated – and also has the license to build vehicles under the Rolls-Royce brand.