Auto major Mahindra & Mahindra said its heavy commercial vehicle making joint venture Mahindra Navistar would start exporting trucks to South Africa within next two years. The company is also exploring possibilities to export truck cabins to its foreign partner Navistar for the US market in the future.

Mr Nalin Mehta MD of Mahindra Navistar Automotive told PTI "Our first export will be to South Africa. We are currently configuring the products for that market and it will take us about two years from now to start exports.”

He added that the vehicles will be exported as a completely built unit from the company's manufacturing facility at Maharashtra to South Africa.

Mr Mehta said that "We had displayed the trucks in last auto expo in South Africa. It received very high appreciation there.”

The company had first rolled out Mahindra Navistar truck from its Chakan facility for the Indian market in 2010.

He added that "We have not decided yet about the branding of the trucks for the export markets... We will also explore other right hand drive markets around the world for exporting these at a later stage.”

Mr Mehta further said the company was also looking at supplying truck cabins to the US partner Navistar. He said that "The trucks that are plying on the US roads are of very powerful than the Indian ones, there is hardly any market for the Indian trucks. However, we are working on exporting the forward cabins to Navistar adding exports of these cabins will take some years to start.”

(Sourced from PTI)