Etali has announced that it will begin forklift production in Saudi Arabia by the end of the year following meetings with potential investors in Riyadh.

The company aims to initially build a small plant with around USD 4 million from investors and then expand the plant once new products are added.

Mr David O'Callaghan director at Etali Group said that the factory opening will start a new era of forklift manufacturing in the Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia.

He expects to see volume rise from around 200 units of the iLift forklifts by the end of 2013 to over 5000 units by the end of 2015 once a smaller range of forklifts has been added.

Mr O Callaghan said that strong demand in the Saudi market for large forklift is a driver of building a production base in the Kingdom though ultimately the company had designs on exporting to countries in the Middle East, Asia, Europe and North America.