The German automaker Bayerische Motoren Werke plans to make its premium cars in India by setting up a joint venture plant with a local automaker, its senior vice president (sales) Luder Paysen said.
The company is in talks with various automakers in India, Asia's fourth-biggest automobile market, to set up an assembly plant and would take a final decision by next year, Paysen said in an interview in Frankfurt.
"In Asia, there are two big markets where we have to put our attention. One is China and the other is India. India for me is a market where BMW has to be present," he said but declined to identify the companies BMW was in talks with.
BMW plans to set up a sales subsidiary in India next year to sell the popular 3-Series, 5-Series and 7-Series models, and later assemble cars from completely-knocked-down kits at the joint venture plant.
"We plan to sell 1,000-2,000 cars every month in India. Gradually, as the market there changes, we expect our sales to grow," Paysen said.
BMW had in the mid-90s planned to enter the Indian market, but the government restrictions on minimum investment limit, local content on car production and export-import balancing led the company to abandon the car project.
The company now sells the '3, 5 and 7-Series' cars in India through two importers in Delhi and Mumbai.
Paysen described Asia as one of the biggest markets for BMW in future, in which it expects to nearly double its sales to 150,000 cars by 2007.
"In the next 10 years, the growth in the global automobile market will come from Asia. In the premium car market, the growth in Asia will be much higher than other parts of the world," he said.
BMW now has a manufacturing plant in Thailand while a joint venture plant would come up in China later this year.
It also has few assembly facilities in the region. BMW sells passenger vehicles in countries like Japan, China, Thailand, South Korea, Indonesia, Phillippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Vietnam.
