Hitachi plans rail car JV in India: Nikkei

Hitachi Ltd plans to sign a joint venture agreement with an Indian firm early next year to assemble rail cars, Japanese business daily Nikkei reported.

The conglomerate plans to export India-made rail cars to Southeast Asian nations, such as Thailand and Vietnam, where it now sells cars made at its Yamaguchi plant, the newspaper said.

To bank on opportunities in India, which is aggressively investing in railway infrastructure, Hitachi wants to wrap up partnership talks early next year and start building a factory as soon as possible, Nikkei said.

The company will also set up a manufacturing base in the UK and plans to build a joint venture factory in Brazil, the business daily reported.

Hitachi expects to boost railway-related sales to 320 billion yen in 2015 from 133.1 billion yen in 2010, with 60 percent of that sales coming from overseas over this period, Nikkei said.