New Delhi: Tata Motors-owned Jaguar Land Rover will invest 450 million pounds (over Rs 4,500 crore) to double the size of its Midland-based Engine Manufacturing Centre (EMC).
The 450 million pound investment programme at EMC is a clear signal of the company’s long-term commitment to Britain, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) said in a regulatory filing on Tuesday.
“The EMC is a strategically significant facility for JLR. The decision to expand our operations at the site provides a clear signal of our commitment to meeting customer demand for cleaner and more efficient engines, whilst developing the skills and capability that Britain needs if it is to remain globally competitive,” JLR CEO Ralf Speth said.
The move would create several hundred of new jobs at the facility which would lead to JLR’s global workforce touch 40,000 by next year.
In the twelve months since its opening, the EMC has seen its workforce reach 700, while further recruitment is going on.
The latest expansion of the EMC will see the site increase its operational footprint to 2,00,000 square meters, supporting capacity uplift as the company continues on its product offensive to deliver more exciting new products to customers.
Total investment in the site, which opened a year ago, now stands at 1 billion pounds, making it the most significant new automotive manufacturing facility to be built in the UK in the last decade.
The EMC is home to high technology, low emission Ingenium engine – JLR’s first venture into in-house engine manufacturing in a generation.
In just twelve months, the facility has moved from prototype production to full-scale manufacture with more than 50,000 engines coming off the production line.
The EMC is one of JLR’s four UK-based manufacturing facilities. Together with its R&D centers in Coventry and Gaydon, JLR has invested 11 billion pounds in product creation and facilities, creating more than 20,000 new jobs in the last five years.
PTI