Bajaj Auto to set up joint venture in Pakistan

Mumbai: Bajaj Auto has decided to set up a manufacturing base in a joint venture with the Saigol family across the border for bikes, scooters and auto rickshaws.

Rahul Bajaj, chairman of Bajaj Auto, said, "Initially we will have a technology deal, where the Saigol family will assemble completely knocked down (CKD) kits exported from India. Later, as political relations improve we will set up a manufacturing facility."

The two-wheeler market in Pakistan has more than doubled to 3.8 lakh units in 2004 — one fourth of what Bajaj Auto sold last year. The market is expected to touch 4 lakh by March 2005. Bajaj Auto is eyeing a nascent market in the three-wheeler segment in Pakistan. The Saigol family, one of the illustrious industrialists in Pakistan with business interests spanning banks to automobiles, left India during the partition. Of the three brothers, one was running the Kohinoor Rubber Works in Kolkata, but left the country during the 1965 Indo-Pak war.