SME Times News Bureau | 09 Feb, 2012
Indian tyre major CEAT, an RPG Group company, will set up a Rs.250 crore greenfield tyre manufacturing plant in Bangladesh, a company official said in Mumbai on Wednesday.

"This is one of the largest manufacturing investments in Bangladesh by an Indian company. The company has already done the necessary groundwork and aims to have tyres rolling out of its Bangladesh plant by the end of 2013," said CEAT deputy managing director Anant Goenka.

Bangladesh, with a population of around 160 million, imports more than 95 percent of its tyre requirement, thus providing an interesting investment opportunity for the manufacture of bias ply tyres.

The company plans to replicate its Sri Lanka model by setting up a small plant of 65 tonnes per day. It aims to capture 40 percent of the total projected demand of bias tyres in the region by 2015.

The company will provide the end-to-end domain knowledge and product technology to the Bangladesh subsidiary that will employ over 550 people in the first phase of operations.

The plant will manufacture truck bias, LCV, last mile and two-three wheelers tyres for the local Bangladesh market.