Tata to set up shoe, bicycle factories in Bangladesh

DHAKA - Indian conglomerate Tata Group has signed an agreement with a company here to jointly manufacture shoes and bicycles in Bangladesh.

The pact was signed Sunday by Nitol-Niloy Group that had plans to manufacture Tata’s $2,200 ‘Nano’ car, but has since offered to manufacture ancillaries for Tata vehicles in Bangladesh.

O.K. Kaul, executive director of Tata International, told The Daily Star that a team would visit Bangladesh in May to see how investment could be materialised.

Tata withdrew in 2008 its $3 billion offer, the highest Bangladesh has received, to invest in a wide range of agro and gas-based industries, engineering and infrastructure.

The Tata proposal, made personally by its chief Ratan Tata in 2003, was considered “politically sensitive” by past governments and held up.