Tata Motors is penetrating South East Asian markets and will supply military vehicles to Thailand and Myanmar

Tata Motors, which is India’s leading automaker by sales, is implementing PM Narendra Modi’s ‘Act East’ policy and will set up new markets in South East Asian region.

Tata Motors will be supplying military vehicles, including troop carriers and combat vehicles, to Thailand and Myanmar.

Vice President, defence and government business, Tata Motors, Vernon Norohna said the company has already passed trials for supplying the 715 GS, 2.5 tonne military vehicles to the Royal Thai Army. These vehicles, Norohna said, are used essentially as troop carriers with a capacity to carry 11 troops.

"Besides Thailand, we are also looking at Myanmar as a market to supply military vehicles," added Norohna.

While the “Look East Policy” was introduced in the early 1990s when the then Congress party’s PV Narasimha Rao was the Prime Minister of India. The same policy was endorsed by former Prime Ministers Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh. This policy has been re-christened as the “Act East Policy” by Modi and has been lauded as the country’s most successful foreign policy initiative taken in the past two decades.

“Indian companies penetrating into the markets of Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam etc is a great commercial move especially in the backdrop of China’s extraordinary ascendance to the world stage and its dominance in the markets of Myanmar and Thailand,” said a foreign affairs expert on the condition of anonymity.

As per the expert, Thailand is presently flooded with Japanese military and commercial vehicles, but Myanmar has dominance from China in the segment.

Although for Tata Motors, this is more of a commercial move, but experts view this penetration as a hedge against China’s massive commercial presence in Myanmar.

“Moreover, there is a huge opportunity in the combat vehicles space as these vehicles are facing replacement in many countries across the globe,” the expert added.

Speaking of Indian plans, Norohna said Tata Motors is laying emphasis on the wheeled platform Kestrel—the armoured amphibious platform in which the company plans to put anti-tank missiles and guns for use by the forces of the Indian Army.

(Anupama Airy is the Founder and Editor of EnergyInfraPost.com and DefenceAviationPost.com. She can be reached at anupama.airy@gmail.com​, Twitter handle: @anupamaairy)