Ford Motors Submits Letter of Intent with Tamil Nadu govt for India comeback
By : G Babu Jayakumar
Update: 2024-09-13 09:20 GMT
Chennai: Ford Motor Company, to whom Chief Minister M K Stalin extended an invitation to resume production from its plant at Maraimalainagar during a meeting with its head honchos at Chicago in the US on Tuesday, has submitted a Letter of Intent (LOI) to the State government, outlining the company’s intention to utilize the plant for manufacturing automobiles for export.
Kay Hart, president of Ford’s International Markets Group, who was among the top executives with whom Stalin held discussions on Tuesday, said, in a LinkedIn post, on Friday: ‘This step underscores our ongoing commitment to India as we intend to leverage the manufacturing expertise available in Tamil Nadu to serve new global markets.’
The decision followed multiple meetings with the Tamil Nadu Government, including the one with the Chief Minister during his visit to the US, she said, adding, ‘We appreciate their ongoing support as we have explored different options for the plant.’
Right now, she said, she was excited that the decision would add to Ford’s growing employee base in Chennai as they were planning to add 2,500 to 3000 employees to the 12,000 strong workforce that now formed the global Ford Business Solution team in the next few years.
India would become Ford’s second largest employee base worldwide once the workforce in Chennai was expanded as it would add to the engine manufacturing team in Sanand, she said.
‘I know people will be curious, but we will have more to share about the type of manufacturing and which export market we’ll be focusing on, along with other details, in due course,’ she said.
State Industries Minister T R B Rajaa said the Chief Minister’s efforts to showcase the State’s manufacturing prowess, its abundant talent pool and to reposition ‘Brand Tamil Nadu’ in its rightful Numero Uno place had yielded rich dividends.
He also uploaded a video of him test driving a F150 at the Ford’s state-of-art Dearbon manufacturing unit during an earlier visit to the US in 24 July this year and said ‘A year of constant interactions and consistent pitches under the guidance of the Chief Minister had resulted in the Ford’s return to Tamil Nadu.
Ford, which started its operations in India in 1995 by opening its plant at Maraimalainagar, near Chennai, closed the unit that was manufacturing cars and engines in 2022. Now, thanks to the effort of the present government, it is returning to the same plant to start production. The facility will be repurposed to focus on manufacturing vehicles for export to the global market.