Tata plans to increase its 2.3% revenue from Africa to 30% annually by expanding in the auto, hospitality, mining and infrastructure sectors. Tata entered Africa in 1977 and plans to enter 7 new countries in the next 4 years, growing its presence to 20 countries on the continent.
R.T. Wasan, head of Tata International Business, said that the automaker plans to form joint ventures in Africa to sell its commercial vehicles here. Currently, the Indian automaker has an assembly plant in South Africa where it manufactures its commercial cars, but passenger vehicles, such as the Indica, are exported into this market.
“We have identified a few partners in Tunisia and Kenya,” said Wasan. “They will be assembling our small, light and medium commercial vehicles. We are evaluating the options for Nano as well.”
Commerce minister Anand Sharma said that the bilateral trade between India and Africa is expected to hit $100 billion by 2015 and that India has invested almost $50 billion in Africa. “We have made investments of around $1.7 billion in all the running projects in Africa and we will continue to augment that,” said Raman Dhawan, managing director, Tata Africa Holdings adding that “The focus areas will be power projects, telecommunications, automotive, mining and hospitality.”
