TAFE plans capacity expansion

April 4: The Chennai-based Tractors and Farm Equipment Ltd (TAFE) plans to invest Rs 180 crore in a capacity expansion programme in 2012-13. The Rs 8,000-crore company, part of the Amalgamations Group, is the world’s third largest tractor maker. It has four plants in India with a combined production capacity of over 180,000 tractors per annum. TAFE, which also has a 15,000-unit plant in Turkey, is now going about setting up a new Rs 100 crore manufacturing facility in Madurai with 60,000-units capacity.

In the just-ended fiscal, the company’s overall tractor sales increased by 26.6 percent to 148,112 tractors as against estimated industry sales of 607,213 tractors. In revenue terms, the company recorded a turnover of Rs 8,020 crore against Rs 6,149 crore in 2010-11. Its export business, too, grew by 28.2 percent to 20,396 completely built units (Rs 1,200 crore) as against industry exports growth of 12.8 percent.

Announcing the results, Ms Mallika Srinivasan, chairman and CEO, TAFE, (pictured) said: “We are happy that our focus on product development and expansion of our product portfolio has paid off.”

KARTHIK H