Chennai, Oct 22 (IANS) Japanese earthmoving equipment company Kobelco Construction Machinery will invest around Rs.46 crore ($9.85 million) to set up a hydraulic excavator factory in the Sri City industrial estate, 55 km from here.
“We will be making 20-tonne excavators as it commands nearly 50 percent of the 8,000-unit per annum market,” said Kobelco India president and chief executive Vikram Sharma.

“We will continue to import other capacities like 14-tonne, 35-tonne and 50-tonne excavators,” Sharma told reporters here Thursday.

The plant, to come up near the Andhra Pradesh-Tamil Nadu border, will manufacture 1,200 units annually. The Indian subsidiary, said Sharma, the Rs.145 crore is targeting a turnover of Rs.200 crore this year.

Maintaining that the Indian excavator market was logging a 36 percent growth before the slowdown hit the economy a year ago, he added: “Prospects are better now and it is a matter of time that the sector logs similar growth rates.”

The company has around 40 dealers across the country and a local production unit will assure customers of faster delivery of components.