Jaguar Land Rover has signed a letter of intent with the National Industrial Clusters Development Program (NICDP) in Saudi Arabia to explore the possibility of setting up an automotive facility in the SUV crazy desert nation.
Despite the venture being in the preliminary stage, both parties involved have already identified various opportunities. The world’s largest integrated aluminium complex, a joint venture between Saudi Arabian Mining Company and Alcoa of the US, is due to begin production in 2014 at the Ras Al Khair facility. This is will significantly benefit JLR as most of the components on its vehicles are made from aluminium. They will soon begin a detailed study to check the viability of the enterprise.
Commenting on the development, Ralf Speth, CEO of JLR, said “We are committed to further international partnerships to meet record demand for our highly sought after vehicles. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is an attractive potential development option, complementing our existing advanced facilities in Britain and recent manufacturing plans to expand in other countries including India and China.”
JLR has announced that they will release more details about the venture in 2013 once the discussions with the Saudi government are completed. This the British manufacturers second global venture this year. It had earlier signed a deal with Chery automobile to setup a manufacturing plant in China.
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