Of this, while Rs 800 crore will be utilised to set up a new manufacturing facility to roll out tractors for exports out of the country, about Rs 150 crore will be deployed towards developing products tailored to meet customer requirements in Latin America, Europe, United States, Oceania and Southeast Asia.
Gaurav Saxena, director and chief executive officer (international business), International Tractors Limited said, “We are looking at investing $100 million to set up a dedicated facility for exports. The new unit will have total installed capacity of 100,000 units and will be commissioned within the next two years.”
Exports currently contribute a third to overall revenues at the company, Saxena said, adding, “As many as 1.5 million tractors are sold globally. We want to feature among the top three tractor brands in the world by 2030.” Armed with fresh capacity and a customised range of products, ITL expects to scale up exports to 100,000 units in the next seven years, from about 35,000 units, currently.
In addition to tractors running on fossil-fuel, ITL is also investing heavily in developing green technologies to power agri equipment. Sushant Sagar Mittal, ED, ITL, informed, “We are developing a range of agri equipments which will run on electric, hydrogen and alternate fuels.” ITL will unveil its electric tractor in NCR on Saturday and in Hanover (Germany) later next month.
The company currently has 600 engineers work at its R&D centres in Hoshiarpur (Punjab) and Noida (Uttar Pradesh).
Saxena said while global trade has been under pressure since the pandemic, ITL has managed to keep operations overseas stable. “Inflation, geopolitical conflicts have affected markets overseas. But even as overall automobile exports out of India have fallen by 30%, we have managed to grow our market share by 9%”, he claimed, adding, ITL now accounts for 36% of all tractors exported out of the country.
In the ongoing financial year, ITL expects exports to remain in the similar range as last year at about 35,000 units. The company expects international business to gain pace next year onwards.
Apart from shipping tractors from India, ITL also has five assembly plants in Brazil, Turkey, Algeria, Thailand and United States.
Keyword: Sonalika to invest Rs 1000 cr to expand international ops