The country’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) expects to receive around 10,000 units of premium hatchback Baleno this fiscal from the upcoming Gujarat plant of its parent Suzuki that will start production from early next year.
The Hansalpur—based facility in Gujarat is the Suzuki Motor Corp’s first wholly—owned unit in India.
“The whole project (Gujarat) is on schedule. We will be selling cars made in Gujarat from February. There is no change in that. During this financial year about 10,000 cars from Gujarat will be produced and delivered to us for sale,” MSI Chairman R C Bhargava said.
Suzuki has envisaged a total investment of around USD 1,400 million on the plant which will house two vehicle assembly lines of 2.5 lakh units per annum each and an engine plant. It will roll out Baleno from the first assembly line.
Suzuki will supply vehicles and components exclusively to MSI from the plant. India is the biggest market for Suzuki, which owns 56 per cent of Maruti Suzuki India — the country’s biggest automaker controlling nearly half of the market.
MSI’s two units at Gurgaon and Manesar have a total production capacity of 1.5 million units annually.