ET Report
Pragati Industries Limited (PIL), a state-owned car assembling plant, is likely to go for trial assembling production of Pajero Sports Jeep by January next year.
"The government is hopeful to market the assembled Pajero in the country through PIL by June next year," Industries Minister Dilip Barua said at a press conference at his secretariat Thursday.
The biggest state-owned vehicle assembling plant has already taken steps to import 12 Pajero in CKD (Completely Knocked Down) condition by November this year, the minister said.
The Pajero will cost about Tk 6.0 million and the government will get about Tk 2.7 million as tax and value added tax (VAT) for per car, he said.
The new model Pajero will be an upgraded version of V-31, Mr Barua said adding "if anyone wants to import a car of the same model from Japan, he will have to pay Tk 12 million but now he can buy the car at half the cost with the car being locally assembled."
Dewan Zakir Hossain, secretary of Ministry of Industries (MoI), said the demand for such vehicles is remarkable in the local market. "Pragati has a capacity of assembling 800 units of Pajero Sports Jeep each year."
PIL will use the local battery made by Rahimafrooz and will gradually use other locally produced parts. PIL is expected to produce 800 diesel-based cars per year which will be converted to CNG, he added.
PIL signed a five-year agreement with Mitsubishi Motors Corporation on July 8 in Japan for assembling its Pajero Sports Jeep at their Chittagong plant.
PIL Managing Director Mohammad Zahir Uddin Chowdhury and Corporate General Manager of Mitsubishi Motors Genichiro Nishina signed the agreement on behalf of their respective sides.
Bangladesh Steel and Engineering Corporation (BSEC) Chairman Mohammad Abu Hafiz, Additional Secretary of MoI ABM Khorshed Alam and a senior official of Mitsubishi Motors, Mitsuyoshi Yokoi, were present at the signing ceremony.
Earlier, the BSEC and the Mitsubishi authorities agreed to set up a joint venture plant to manufacture cars in Chittagong.
Mitsubishi Motors Corporation on December 3 last year sent a suggestion titled "Proposal for Pajero Sports Jeep Assembling Project at PIL factory" to the MoI with an estimated cost of 110 million Japanese yen.
Following the proposal, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between the two parties on February 24 this year.
The Japanese team visited the PIL factory in March, April and July and had imparted training to the local engineers who will assemble the cars.
The cabinet committee on public purchase approved procuring 420 Pajero Jeeps for upazila chairmen and 208 Pajero for upazila nirbahi officers (UNOs) in the fiscal 2008-09 and 2009-10 through PIL.