Daimler Sets Up Truck Export Hub in India

Daimler AG will begin shipping commercial trucks to Sri Lanka next month from its €700 million Oragadam assembly plant outside Chennai, India. The company plans expand the factory's exports to 15 markets in Asia and Africa by the end of 2014.

Establishing India as a truck export base is part of Daimler's new Asia strategy. Under that plan, the company's India commercial vehicle unit and Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus subsidiary aim to sell 290,000 trucks annually by 2020.

Such volume would help Daimler Trucks reach its worldwide goal of boosting annual sales to 500,000 units by 2015 and 700,000 units by 2020 from 462,000 units last year.

Last week the one-year-old Oragadam factory began producing the first of five new medium- and heavy-duty truck models developed by Mitsubishi Fuso. That export-only truck family, which will be sold under the Fuso brand, will have about 90% Indian content. Until now, most Fuso trucks have been built in Japan.

The new Fuso trucks share a platform with the medium- and heavy-duty trucks that Daimler began building at the new truck facility in mid-2012 for sale in India under the new BharatBenz brand.