MUMBAI, Oct 6: Tata AutoComp Systems Ltd (Taco) on Monday signed a joint venture agreement with Ficosa of Spain for the design and manufacture of rear view systems, command and control cables, sun visors and washer systems. The joint venture also has agreements to manufacture rear view mirrors and control cables for supplies to Telco, Ford and Peugeot.It plans to invest around Rs 9 crore at the proposed manufacturing facility near Pune.

Ficosa is one of the largest auto-component companies in Europe, with operations in 10 countries. For the year 1996, the company recorded a turnover of Rs 10 billion, of which more than 60 per cent was outside Spain. General Motors, VolksWagon, Ford, Renault, BMW, Mercedes Benz, Group PSA, Nissan and Toyota are among its major customers. Ficosa is looking at India for investments.

Taco, a new venture firm from Tata Enterprises, has made a foray into the auto-component business. Set up as a holding company, Taco has promoted a series of joint ventures to bring state-of-the-art technologies to the country. Taco plans to set up two types of joint ventures, Group I and Group II. Group I will be predominantly technology companies, which will be set up in a joint venture with global auto-component manufacturers. To support the outsourcing activity in terms of quality, productivity and reliability of supply, Taco plans to set up Group II companies which will be joint ventures with mainly domestic partners.

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