A visitor looks at a CRRC train model during the International Urban Rail Exhibition (UrTran 2015) held in Beijing in June last year. (Photo : Getty Images)
China has started the operation of its first joint venture plant in India with the opening of an assembly plant, China CRRC Corporation Ltd, the country's largest rail transportation equipment maker, announced Saturday, Aug. 20.
The Xinhua News Agency reported that it was the first time for a Chinese company to open a plant in a south Asian country.
In a press statement, CRRC said it is the first foreign company to set up the assembly of rail transport equipment in India, following the launching of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "Made in India" campaign in 2014.
The two countries had invested a total of $63.4 million, with China holding 51 percent of the share, in the joint venture named CRRC Pioneer (India) Electric Co Ltd.
The plant, which is based in Bavo Industrial District of Haryana, located between New Delhi and Bombay, will repair and produce railway locomotive engines, as well as provide support to India's rail system. It will also produce electric transmission systems for oil drilling, mining equipment, and wind power generation in the country.
CRRC Vice President Yu Weiping said that more jobs and tax revenue will be created for local people with the opening of the new plant. It will also help improve infrastructure as well as enhance cooperation in industrial capacity and local equipment manufacturing, he added.
Since 2007, CRRC has been involved in the Indian market, supplying it with subway train, engines and other railway parts and equipment.
"Given more than 60,000 kilometers of railways in India, it is far from enough to build a single locomotive engine plant in India," Yu Weiping said.
"CRRC will build more plants able to produce trains, locomotive traction systems and other key parts in India," the CRRC official added.
CRRC has exported railway transportation equipment to more than 100 countries and regions. It started its first plant in North America in September 2015 in Massachusetts.
