Manufacturing of JLR in India not possible: Tata
17 Dec 2012 6:33 AM IST
Ruling out any possibility of manufacturing Jaguar and Land Rover in India in the near future, Tata group chief Ratan Tata has said that some 'silly taxes' make even their assembly here costlier than the imports.
Tatas are building a plant in China which will export these cars to different parts of the world and have been invited by Saudi Arabia as well.
'India is still making it somewhat difficult for us to offer it,' he said when asked as to when Jaguar and Land Rover could be manufactured in India.
'They are being assembled now (in India). Unfortunately, today if we were to manufacture here, it would cost more than the assembled one,' said Tata, who would hang his boots as the chief of an over USD 100-billion salt-to-software conglomerate later this month on 28 December.
Asked about the difficulties in manufacturing these cars in India, Tata said, 'Because we do not have scale of manufacturing here, we are selling about a 1,000 Jaguars a year and you would need to be at least four to five times that in order to justify the investment that you would make, so unfortunately, the assembly here is turning out to be more costly than importing the cars because of some silly taxes that have been imposed on companies.' Tata said that the 'government should really look at doing things to incentivise people to bring more investment to India so that it becomes a base of exports, which unfortunately is not happening and China is doing that.' 'We are building a plant in China which will export to different parts of the world. Even Saudi Arabia is asking us to come there and India is still making it somewhat difficult for us to offer it,' he added. Meanwhile, fighting economic downturn in Europe, Tatas are working to lower costs at its Jaguar Land Rover and steel operations there including a possible sale of any ‘piece of business’ but will try not to cut any jobs, added Ratan Tata.
The salt-to-software conglomerate’s head also took on those who criticise the group’s prized acquisitions of JLR and Corus as ‘stupid moves’ due to huge cash outgo involved and said they seem to forget that an economic downturn happened soon after these takeovers.
‘.... The steel company is really suffering because of the downturn in Europe and the UK.
All we are trying to do now is to reduce our cost base so that when we come out of that recession we will have a leaner company,’ Tata said.
‘In the case of JLR, we are also told the same thing, it was a stupid thing you did because after we bought the company we infused more working capital into the company than the cost of the company,’ he said.
Things have changed since then and ‘Jaguar and Land Rover are today doing very well’, he said.
Talking about the need to cut costs in its operations in Europe, Tata said, ‘We are trying not to have a (job) reduction, we are trying to reduce cost by rationalising units and if we can reduce cost by selling off any piece of business as we did last year.’
Tatas are building a plant in China which will export these cars to different parts of the world and have been invited by Saudi Arabia as well.
'India is still making it somewhat difficult for us to offer it,' he said when asked as to when Jaguar and Land Rover could be manufactured in India.
'They are being assembled now (in India). Unfortunately, today if we were to manufacture here, it would cost more than the assembled one,' said Tata, who would hang his boots as the chief of an over USD 100-billion salt-to-software conglomerate later this month on 28 December.
Asked about the difficulties in manufacturing these cars in India, Tata said, 'Because we do not have scale of manufacturing here, we are selling about a 1,000 Jaguars a year and you would need to be at least four to five times that in order to justify the investment that you would make, so unfortunately, the assembly here is turning out to be more costly than importing the cars because of some silly taxes that have been imposed on companies.' Tata said that the 'government should really look at doing things to incentivise people to bring more investment to India so that it becomes a base of exports, which unfortunately is not happening and China is doing that.' 'We are building a plant in China which will export to different parts of the world. Even Saudi Arabia is asking us to come there and India is still making it somewhat difficult for us to offer it,' he added. Meanwhile, fighting economic downturn in Europe, Tatas are working to lower costs at its Jaguar Land Rover and steel operations there including a possible sale of any ‘piece of business’ but will try not to cut any jobs, added Ratan Tata.
The salt-to-software conglomerate’s head also took on those who criticise the group’s prized acquisitions of JLR and Corus as ‘stupid moves’ due to huge cash outgo involved and said they seem to forget that an economic downturn happened soon after these takeovers.
‘.... The steel company is really suffering because of the downturn in Europe and the UK.
All we are trying to do now is to reduce our cost base so that when we come out of that recession we will have a leaner company,’ Tata said.
‘In the case of JLR, we are also told the same thing, it was a stupid thing you did because after we bought the company we infused more working capital into the company than the cost of the company,’ he said.
Things have changed since then and ‘Jaguar and Land Rover are today doing very well’, he said.
Talking about the need to cut costs in its operations in Europe, Tata said, ‘We are trying not to have a (job) reduction, we are trying to reduce cost by rationalising units and if we can reduce cost by selling off any piece of business as we did last year.’
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