Tamil Nadu, Ford Motor in talks to restart production eyeing global market

Two years after winding up its India production, global automobile giant Ford Motor Company is in talks with the Tamil Nadu government to restart its production at Maraimalai Nagar near Chennai, focusing on exports. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin visited Ford headquarters in Michigan on Tuesday and held detailed discussions with its top management, urging them to restart production.

"Had a very engaging discussion with the team from Ford Motors. Explored the feasibility of renewing Ford's three-decade partnership with Tamil Nadu, to again make in Tamil Nadu for the world," M K Stalin said in a post on X platform. Ford India announced the phasing out of its unit on September 9, 2021, and stopped production at the Chennai unit in August 2022.

This comes at a time when the city, through Ford Business Solutions (FBS), is turning out to be the brain behind key design and development aspects of all the globally successful models by the US major in the past two years.