Vietnamese carmaker VinFast has agreed to build an electric vehicle plant in southern India’s Tamil Nadu state in an investment worth up to $2bn, marking its foray into the world’s third-largest car market. The EV producer, founded and run by Vietnam’s richest man Pham Nhat Vuong, said it intended to commit $500mn in the first phase of the project and would begin building the plant in Thoothukudi in the southern part of Tamil Nadu this year.
VinFast and the Tamil Nadu government signed the memorandum of understanding at an investors’ conference at the weekend in the state capital Chennai. The carmaker said it hoped the factory would become a “first-class electric vehicle production hub in the region” with the capacity to build 150,000 cars but gave few details of its plans. It said together with Tamil Nadu’s state government, it would “work toward a total investment of up to USD 2 billion”.
Tamil Nadu is India’s biggest exporter of electronics and a hub for its automotive industry. Among the other groups that announced investments in the state at the government-organised Global Investors Meet on Sunday were South Korean carmaker Hyundai and Indian EV and ride-hailing company Ola.
https://www.ft.com/content/1c959732-2b2b-4f1b-8a71-6d6bdbe01c61
Last edited:
