[Biashpainabix]

French car manufacturer PSA Peugeot Citroen has chosen Tamil Nadu for its Rs.4,000 crore car plant, a government release said on Wednesday.

Peugeot will locate its plant in Sriperumbudur, near Chennai, adding one more feather to the cap of the state capital, known as the Detriot of India.

This is also the first major investment that the Jayalalithaa-led government, in power in the state for just 45 days, has attracted and tied up. Representatives of the French car manufacturer met the chief minister in her chamber Wednesday to spell out their plans.

Peugeot is the fifth major car manufacturer to set up a plant in the industrial hubs

spread just outside the city like Maraimalai Nagar, Oragadam and Sriperumbudur, Hyundai, Ford, BMW and Renault-Nissan are other majors already in the state and who have built/assembled more than a million cars here for sale in India and abroad. Also, Hindustan-Mitsubishi Motors has a plant in Tiruvallur near Chennai.

The press release said Peugeot has identified land at Sriperumbudur to set up its plant with an initial capacity of three lakh cars per year that will be sold in the domestic market and also exported to countries.

A high level delegation from PSA, including its CEO China (Asian Operations) Gregoire Olivier and Peugeot Citroen India MD Frederic Fabre, Senior Managing Director Jitesh Gadhia and Tamil Nadu Industries Minister S.P.Velumani called on chief minister at the Secretariat. During the meet, the CM thanked the PSA executives for selecting Tamil Nadu and assured them of government support for the project, the press release said.