Tata Motors

Mumbai, Feb 14 (UNI) Tata Motors and Fiat will expand their strategic co-operation with the start of an industrial project outside India envisaging a planned investment of around USD 80 million.

Announcing this in a notice to BSE, Tata Motors said this is a further significant step towards an integrated strategy of targeting specific markets and segments. The agreement, which calls for Tata license to build a pick-up vehicle bearing, the Fiat name plate at Fiat Group Automobiles' plant in Cordoba, Argentina, follows a feasibility study started in July 2006.

The first vehicles will roll off the Cordoba assembly lines during 2008 and the annual production is slated at around 20,000 units.

With the production of the pick-up model, the Fiat complex in Cordoba will retake the integral activity of all its productive units, to a great extent reinitiated with the manufacture of Fiat engines and gearboxes and the recent agreement to produce gearboxes for PSA Peugeot-Citroen.

The pick-up, based on the new generation Tata pick-up truck, will be sold in South and Central America and select European markets through Fiat Automobiles' distribution and importer network. This will permit the Fiat brand to aggressively enter the medium pick up sector.

The Fiat pick- up, powered by an FPT engine, will be styled and positioned differently from the Tata pick-up. It will be available in the following versions; 4x4, 4x2, double and single cab and powered by a JTD diesel 2.3 litres, 134 PS Euro IV engine, manufactured in Fiat Powertrain Technology's facility in Sete Lagoas, Brazil.

Tata Motors considers Latin America as an important market and is examining options for offering its products in this region, including through cooperation with Fiat and Iveco for manufacturing and distribution.

Ratan N Tata, Chairman of the Tata Group and Tata Motors said, ''I am very pleased at this first step in expanding the Fiat Group and Tata relationship beyond the shores of India, and would hope this would augur well for a truly global partnership across markets and business segments.'' Meanwhile, Tata Motors has announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Iveco, a compay of Fiat Group, to analyse the feasibility of cooperation, across markets, in the area of Commercial Vehicles. It further informed BSE that the MoU would encompass a number of potential developments in engineering, manufacturing, sourcing and distribution of products, aggregates and components.

Shortly after the MoU signature, Iveco and Tata Motors will set up a joint Steering Committee to determine the feasibility of cooperation, both in the short and over the long term. When found feasible, the two Companies will enter into definitive agreements in the course of the coming months.

The Managing Director of the Company, Ravi Kant, said ''We are truly excited about the potential of the opportunities this cooperation offers, complementing each other's strengths in products and across markets.'' UNI