Mahindra And Mahindra Ltd. to Set Up Factory in Bangladesh

Desk Report

Published: 13 Jan 2021, 11:45 am

Indian Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd. have expressed its keen interest in setting up agricultural machinery assembling a factory in Bangladesh in the midst of the growing demand for agricultural machinery under labour shortages that the subsistence agriculture sector of the country is facing on a daily basis, reports BSS.

“The Indian automobile manufacturing conglomerate ‘Mahindra and Mahindra Limited’ is planning to set up farm machineries assembling factory here,” said its Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Pawan Kumar Goenka.

The plan was officially unveiled during a virtual platform meeting held today with Minister of Agriculture Dr M Abdur Razzaque.

In addition, the Indian company will take the initiative of creating trained manpower to ease maintenance and popularize farm machinery in the grassroots of the country, said the CEO at the virtual meeting.

India has an enormous amount of scope to invest in Bangladesh, as the country has almost US$1.2 billion market for farm machinery that thrives annually with a 10% growth rate in view of the serious labour crisis in the agricultural sector.

To make the agriculture sector profitable, the government gives priority to farm mechanization and has also undertaken a Taka 3,000 crore project to distribute almost 51,000 farm machinery through the project.

In particular, the Taka 200 crore project was launched this year to provide farm machinery, including 'combined harvester' and 'reaper' to farmers with 50 to 70% subsidies, the Minister of Agriculture told reporters in a briefing after the meeting.

Along with setting up the machineries assembling factory, he said, the Indian company also will assign the local spare parts manufacturers and small entrepreneurs for manufacturing machineries in locally.

Considering higher price of the farm machineries, the company will distribute financial loans among the farmers for purchasing expensive machineries, Dr Razzaque told the briefing.

Additional Agriculture Secretaries M Hasanuzzaman Kallol and Dr M Abdur Rauf, Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation Chairman M Sayedul Islam, Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M’s) Farm Equipment Sector (FES) President Hemant Sikka, its country head Rabin Kumar Das and other top officials were also joined the meeting.

The meeting was held as a follow-up of a digital conference held between Bangladesh and India last year.

At a digital conference on 22 December 2020, Indian Union Minister of Trade & Industry and Railways Piyush Goyal, on behalf of TATA Steal and Mahindra & Mahindra Limited, expressed a strong interest in agricultural investment, including agricultural mechanization, food processing and the food value chain in Bangladesh.

Editor & Publisher: Eliash Uddin Palash

Address: 10/22 Iqbal Road, Block A, Mohammadpur, Dhaka-1207

Design & Developed By Root Soft Bangladesh