Jaguar Land Rover to invest 600 million pounds in Britain

LONDON: Indian-owned luxury car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover announced a 600 million pounds (US$894 million, 814 million euros) investment in advanced car manufacturing in Britain yesterday.

The British car brand, which was bought by India’s Tata Motors for 2.3 billion pounds from Ford in 2008 at the height of the global financial crisis, said the investment showed its commitment to Britain’s resurgent car industry.

“Jaguar Land Rover continues to demonstrate its unwavering support to the British automotive industry through sustained investments in advanced research, technology and innovation,” Jaguar Land Rover chief executive Ralf Speth said in a statement.

“This investment, made here in the heartland of our UK business operations, signals the confidence we have in this region to support the creation, engineering and manufacturing of ultra-low emission, premium British products, today and in the future.”

The largest portion of the investment is focused on the automaker’s Castle Bromwich site in England’s West Midlands, where 320 million pounds will complete its development into “a global centre of excellence for lightweight vehicle manufacturing”, the statement said.

The announcement came after a plan to double a design and engineering centre in Whitley in the West Midlands was revealed, part of a drive to create low-emission vehicles. — AFP