Tamil Nadu, Ford Motor in talks to restart production eyeing global market

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin visited Ford headquarters in Michigan on Tuesday and held detailed discussions with its top management, urging them to restart production

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Two years after winding up its India production, global automobile giant Ford Motor Company is in talks with the Tamil Nadu government to restart operations at Maraimalai Nagar near Chennai, where it will focus on exports.

Chief Minister Stalin visited Ford headquarters in Michigan on Tuesday and held discussions with its top management, urging it to restart production. 

“Had a very engaging discussion with the team from Ford Motors. Explored the feasibility of renewing Ford's three-decade partnership with Tamil Nadu, to again make in Tamil Nadu for the world,” Stalin said in a post on X platform.

Ford India announced the phasing out of its unit on September 9, 2021, and stopped production at Chennai in August 2022.

This comes at a time when the city, through Ford Business Solutions (FBS), is turning out to be the brain behind key design and development aspects of globally successful models by the US major in the past two years.

According to FBS, the company’s top-selling models globally — including the F-Series, Explorer, Transit, Ranger, and others — are getting a touch of India. This is through the “design and development of specific components.”

FBS oversees the global capabilities of the company through its 12,000 employees at its Global Technology & Business Center in Chennai. It is in the process of creating 3,000 more jobs in the next three years. 

Stalin also urged the company to expand its global technology centre there.

The CM also extended an invitation to senior executives of IT Serve Alliance, a major consortium of IT service companies for small and medium businesses in the US. He urged them to make fresh investments in Tamil Nadu. 

As part of this effort to increase investments in the state, he had undertaken an official visit to the US to attract investments to Tamil Nadu.

During this visit, agreements worth Rs 7,016 crore were signed with 16 leading global companies in San Francisco and Chicago. Invitations were extended to senior executives of various top global companies to invest in Tamil Nadu.

Those who met Stalin included Ford’s IMG president K Hart, vice-president (international government affairs) Matthew Kotlowski, Ford India director (government affairs) Sripath Pat and other officials.

IT Serve Alliance operates with 2,400 member companies across 23 states. The alliance supports business-friendly policies and enhances networking opportunities.

It was due to accumulated losses of around $2 billion over a decade that Ford stopped its production in India.

At that time, through brands like EcoSport and Endeavour SUVs, it had less than 2 per cent share of the country's passenger vehicle market.