The Hindu Business Line : Global Automobiles in technical tie-up with Guangzhou of China

WEST Bengal is going to get another two-wheeler manufacturing unit within the next few months. If the first joint venture to come up in technical and financial collaboration was with the Salim Group of Indonesia, the second is in technical collaboration with Guangzhou Motors Company of China.

An agreement for the second two-wheeler project at Chinsura in Hooghly district was signed between the city-based Global Automobiles Pvt Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Xenitis Group and Guangzhou Motors Company.

Although the first phase of the Rs 300-crore plant is expected to be completed by June, the assembling job of two-wheelers, based on 100 per cent imported component, will begin from April 15. The components will be imported on a semi-knocked-down (CKD) condition.

The company plans to enter the market with three variants of the product under the brand name "Xoom", that is, 100cc, 125cc, 150cc motorcycles.

Guangzhou Motors will provide technical support for setting up the assembly line, production process and service network, while the entire cost will be borne by the Xenitis Group.

Announcing this here on Tuesday, Dr Sabyasachi Sen, Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Commerce & Industry, said the State Government had welcomed the initiative and extended its unstinted support for the successful implementation of the project.

Mr Santanu Ghosh, Chairman of Xenitis Group, said the assembling job would begin at Xenitis' personal computer (PC) manufacturing unit at Chinsura.

The new facilities for the two-wheeler would be ready by June-July, and will be adjacent to the PC factory.

Initially, the company has plans to assemble 30,000-35,000 motorcycles per month. After shifting the plant to a new location, production would be raised to 50,000 to 60,000 pieces per month. He clarified that debt-equity ratio of Global Automobile would be 2:1.