BSS-47 Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd. to set up factory in Bangladesh

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ZCZC

BSS-47

INDIA-INTEREST-FARM-MECHANIZATION

Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd. to set up factory in Bangladesh

DHAKA, Jan 12, 2021 (BSS) – Indian Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd. has
expressed its keen interest to set up farm machineries assembling
factory in Bangladesh amid growing demand of farm machineries under
labour shortage concern mounting day by day facing by country’s
subsistence agriculture sector.

“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 revealed officially during a virtual platform meeting
held with Agriculture Minister Dr M Abdur Razzaque here today.

Besides, the Indian company will take initiative to create trained
manpower for easing maintenance and popularize farm machineries at the
grassroots of the country, the CEO told the virtual meeting.

India has a huge scope to make investment in Bangladesh as the
country has nearly 1.2 billion US$ market of farm machineries that
flourishing annually with 10% growth rate under the perspective of
serious labour crisis prevailing in the agriculture sector.

To make the agriculture sector profitable, the government is giving
priority on the farm mechanization and also has taken a Taka 3,000
crore project for distributing nearly 51,000 farm machineries through
the project.

Particularly, a project of Taka 200 crore has been taken this year
for providing farm machineries including ‘combined harvester’ and
‘reaper’ among the farmers with 50 to 70 percent subsidy, said the
agriculture minister to 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.

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

Bss/pr/og/MRU/2051hrs