The joint venture agreement signed between Russia's Kamaz and India's Vectra Group, culminated on Thursday the 25th of February, with the commissioning of a US$ 16 million (US$ 345,669) tipper truck assembling plant at Hosur with an initial capacity of 1,500 trucks.

In the joint venture, Kamaz holds a 51% stake and Vectra 49% and plans were to step up production to 7,500 units of truck variants by 2013, both companies said. The tippers now come as CKD (completely knocked down) to be put together at Hosur.

Joint development

A separate agreement was signed by Sergey Kogogin, Director General of Kamaz, and V. R. S. Natarajan, Chairman and Managing Director of BEML, for joint development of 4X4 vehicles for the Indian armed services. The army's requirement for such vehicles was 6,000 units annually, Mr. Natarajan said. Kamaz was a leader in trucks in Russia and CIS countries and its technical expertise would help BEML.

Payload

The Kamaz 6540 multi-axle tipper launched here has a payload of 19 tonnes, powered by a V8 twin turbocharged engine with an output of 260hp.

The company also makes other cargo vehicles and heavy duty tractors.

Localisation

Denis Trifonoff, Director General, Kamaz Vectra Motors, said "We will now have 12 per cent localisation, to be increased to 40%. Besides the Indian market, we may look at exports to Southeast Asian and African countries. Our main market in the Russian region has been oil companies, mining and large infrastructure."

Vectra Geoup Chairman Ravi Rishi said the variant chosen for initial production was sturdy enough for Indian roads and with construction activity picking up again, prospects were good. The Russian Federation Ambassador to India, Alexander Kadakin, and President-elect of Tataristan Republic (where Kamaz has its main operations), Rustom M. Minnikhanov, said the commissioning of the plant was just weeks before Russian Prime Minister Putin was scheduled to visit India and took business ties between the two countries to a high level.