JLR to invest Rs 2,650 cr on new UK plant

Tata Motors-owned Jaguar Land Rover said on Monday it will invest 355 million pounds (about Rs 2,650 crore) to set up an advanced engine facility in the UK.

After recent discussions between Jaguar Land Rover and the UK government, JLR has confirmed that it will invest 355 million pounds in a new facility to manufacture all-new, advanced technology, low-emission engines in the country, the company said.

To be set up at Staffordshire, near Wolverhampton, the facility will manufacture a family of low emission 4-cylinderJLR petrol and diesel engines, it added.

JLR chief executive officer Ralf Speth said: "As part of our long-term strategy for the JLR business, we will design, engineer and manufacture a new family of advanced engines.

"This is a major commitment for our company and we will produce these advanced, highly-efficient engines for future Jaguar and Land Rover models at a new facility

in the UK."

Earlier this year, Speth had stated that JLR would invest 1.5 billion pounds a year for the next five years on new product developments.

"Expanding our engine range will help us realise the full global potential of the Jaguar and Land Rover brands," he said, adding that the all-new engines would increase JLR's capability to offer high performance engines with refinement, ensuring significant reductions in vehicle emissions.

The firm did not specify the production capacity of the proposed plant and the timeline for its operationalisation.

It, however, said: "The engine manufacturing facility is expected to create up to 750 highly-skilled engineering and manufacturing posts at JLR, along with thousands more highly-skilled manufacturing jobs in the supply chain and the wider UK economy."

JLR said it employs more than 19,000 people directly in the UK and supports up to 140,000 jobs in total through the supply chain, dealer network and wider economy.