Coastal to invest $5.8b in Pakistan automobile plant
A prominent foreign group has decided to invest $5.8 billion in Pakistan to manufacture Mercedes-Benz trucks, buses and cars.
Coastal Group would make all the financial investment in the project, while Daimler Chrysler would provide technology transfer.
Daimler Chrysler and Coastal Group are believed to be creating a big vendor industry in the process. The group would set up their plant on 1,200 acre plot near Shaikhopura, Lahore.
“This huge investment would create 5,000 jobs directly and indirectly,” said Umar Ahmed Ghumman, minister of state for privatisation and investment and chairman Board of Investment (BoI) at a news conference yesterday.
It was on May 7,1998 that two of the world’s leading car manufacturers, the German Daimler-Benz AG and the USA-based Chrysler Corporation, announced their merger. The new company called Daimler-Chrysler became the world’s fifth-largest car maker with combined revenues of around $130 billion, operating profit of around $7billion, and a workforce of more than 420,000 employees.
The minister said the groups would export products to neighbouring countries as well as to the Gulf region, which would earn billions of dollars in foreign exchange for Pakistan. A training institute conforming to international standards would also be established in Pakistan.
An industrial estate (vendor industry) would also be set up to locally produce spare parts as per European standards for local and export purposes, Mr Ghumman said.
