TAFE's Turkish plant to roll out tractors by July

(From left) Past chairman of CII Southern Region Pradipta K Mohapatra, Ambassador of Turkey to India Levent Bilman and Vice-Chairman of TAFE Mallika Srinivasan, at a meeting in Chennai. Photo: K.V. Srinivasan

TAFE will start rolling out Massey Ferguson tractors from its Turkish plant by July, its vice-chairman Mallika Srinivasan said on Monday.

The plant at Manisa, Turkey, will be TAFE's first overseas green field tractor manufacturing facility. The rollout of the Turkish unit was delayed because of the economic slowdown and currency volatility, said a company official.

Addressing members of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) at the CEO's roundtable meeting with Turkey's Ambassador to India, she said, “our aspiration is to develop an efficient and competitive supply chain. We want to have a manufacturing footprint in India, China and Turkey. Getting into Turkey is easy. The unique feature of this market is that Turks prefer local products. Our manufacturing unit and service network will be the differentiating factor.”

Speaking to

The Hindu , she said construction began in January after a delay of six to eight months; almost 60 per cent of the civil engineering work was now over. The unit would produce 15,000 tractors annually.

“Initially, we will sell tractors in Turky and then focus on the neighbouring countries. Language is not a problem as we have employed over 80 per cent local workers,” she said.

In 2009-2010, TAFE registered a sale volume of 100,000 tractors and ranked among top three tractor makers in the world.

Urging Indian businessmen to invest in Turkey, its Ambassador to India Levent Bilman said, “it takes only three simple steps to set up a new business unit in Turkey. The company can be opened in a day. In the case of TAFE, it was done in half-a-day. Chennai and Turkey can collaborate in the fields of IT, engineering and automobiles.”

He termed India and Turkey as the ‘rising stars' as they had the required manpower, skill and knowledge, shared the same vision and had the capacity to effect growth in their respective regions.

In his presentation, Ravi Chaudhry, India representative, of the Turkish Prime Minister's office, said that Turkey was the fastest growing economy in the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) in the period 2003-2008 and was expected to post 6.7 per cent growth in the coming years.