The US-headquartered warehousing equipment maker Hyster will explore opportunities to use the upcoming greenfield facility of Kolkata based Rs 1,400-crore TIL Ltd as one of its global export hub of product and services.

TIL will manufacture reach stackers and forklifts in collaboration with Hyster at its upcoming Rs 150-crore facility at Vidyasagar Industrial Park in Kharagpur, West Bengal.

Hyster is a Rs 13,500 crore equipment-maker specialising In addition to reach stackers and forklift trucks, the Vidyasagar Industrial Park unit would manufacture cranes in collaboration with Manitowoc of the US.

The West Bengal Commerce and Industry Minister, Mr Partha Chatterjee, laid the foundation stone for the proposed Vidyasagar unit on Friday. The facility is expected to come on stream in March 2013.

Looking at exports
“We will explore opportunities for export of products manufactured in the Kharagpur unit. The proximity of the unit to port facilities would help us explore these new opportunities,” Mr Rajesh Wazarkar, Managing Director, NMHG India Engineering and Support Services Pvt Ltd, told Business Line.

NMHG designs and manufactures “Yale” and “Hyster” material handling equipments like forklifts, port equipments and warehousing equipments. NMHG, in turn, has a tie-up with TIL for manufacture of Hyster products.

Technical Tie-Up
The TIL Vice-Chairman and Managing Director, Mr Sumit Mazumder, said the new factory will add fresh capacities to the company's crane division now based at Kamarhati in West Bengal.

Earlier, the Minister inaugurated the Changual facility of the company also near Kharagpur.

The Changual facility, which has already started commercial production, manufactures port and construction equipments.