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Tatas to invest Rs 30 billion in auto component ventures by 2005

Tata Autocomp Systems Limited, promoted by Tata Industries Limited, will invest Rs 30 billion to set up a series of joint ventures with global leaders in automotive components, Chief Executive Officer D S Gupta said in Pune on Friday.

After the inauguration of the joint venture Tata Toyo Radiators at Hinjewadi, Gupta said the investment is to set up more than 100 joint ventures by 2005.

TACO, Gupta said, has already invested about Rs 1.5 billion in the seven joint ventures now in operation, while another five or six joint ventures are at an advanced stage of negotiation.

TACO is looking to manufacture air-conditioning systems, safety systems, and rubber parts.

At the inaugural function, Tata group chairman Ratan Tata refused to comment on the group's airline project.

The group has withdrawn from the airlines project -- that was all Tata said when asked to comment.

When his notice was drawn to reports that the civil aviation ministry seemed inclined to back their project, Tata evaded a reply by saying, ''I have not read the reports.''

Toyo radiator company president Shuji Hashimoto was present on the occasion.

In the Rs 560 million joint venture, the Tatas have an equity of 51 per cent, with an installed capacity to manufacture 500,000 radiators per annum. Toyo Radiator Company and Mitsubishi Corporation of Japan are the other partners.

This is the first such facility in India to manufacture aluminium brazed radiators using the Toyo atmospheric brazing process, according to the joint venture CEO S B Mantri.

The joint venture set up with the immediate requirement of radiators for the Tata small car Indica will supply 30,000 radiators to the manufacturers, Telco, by March next year, he said.

Among the other major players in the automotive field to which the company would be supplying the radiators include Daewoo for their Matiz small car and Honda Siel cars.

He said that the company would have to educate the manufacturers and later the end-users on the new concept of radiators, which are ''fit-and-forget'' type, since it does not require to fill water like the conventional ones that are in use today.

UNI