Runner to create commercial vehicles
Runner Automobiles is acquiring preparations to get Tk 433 crore to set up a car assembling and manufacturing facility to grab a talk about of the rapidly developing commercial vehicle market.
"Equity will provide some of the fund and currently we happen to be in talks with a foreign bank for the funding of the project," said Hafizur Rahman Khan, chairman of Runner Automobiles.
The Bangladeshi motorcycle producer signed an agreement in this regard with Indian commercial vehicle maker Eicher Motors practically one and a half years back for technical cooperation.
"We wanted to set up the plant by the primary half of 2020, but Covid-19 delayed the complete process," said Khan.
The company primarily wished to establish the plant inside its existing Bhaluka plant in Mymensingh. "But we'd to discard the plan due to too little space."
Later, the business sought 40 acres of land interior Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Shilpa Nagar from Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority (Beza).
"We are in need of 60 acres in total for a complete automobile facility. I hope Beza will allocate even more lands for all of us."
The plant is looking to create employment for around 350 people having different skills, including automobile engineers and technicians, he said.
"We begins with assembling commercial vehicles like trucks and buses of Eicher. Within the next five years, we will gradually move towards making chassis and various other components."
Runner is also the local distributor of light, method and heavy duty trucks of Eicher.
The sales of industrial vehicles are increasing quickly in Bangladesh with around 35 per cent of the demand for trucks becoming met by Eicher.
The marketplace size of professional vehicles grew 15 % to 20 % every year in the last decade.
Around 35,000 professional vehicles such as buses, trucks, auto-rickshaws, cargo vans, individual haulers, pickups and tankers were sold on an average since 2017, approach higher than the two 2,000 rate a decade ago, according to info from Bangladesh Road Transportation Authority.
At present, the marketplace size of industrial vehicles is approximately Tk 4,200 crore whereas it had been about Tk 2,000 crore ten years ago.
Now Rangs Motors Limited, Ifad Autos Small and Nitol-Niloy Group are assembling commercial cars of Indian Mahindra and Mahindra, Ashok Leyland, and Tata respectively.
Up to now, Beza received purchase proposals worth $23.97 billion from local and foreign businesses for diverse economic zones in the united states.
"During the pandemic in 2020, investors expressed their willingness to get $4.08 billion, that is a record and a very good sign for the economy," said Paban Chowdhury, executive chairman of Beza.
