Pretoria - Tata, the diversified Indian group that last week announced its entry into the car and light commercial vehicle markets, also has its sights set on bringing its power generation business to South Africa.
Ratan Tata, the group's chairman and a member of President Thabo Mbeki's International Investment Council, said last week: "We see power generation as being an opportunity. South Africa is looking at augmenting its power generation capacity."
Tata hinted that the group's local involvement could be expanded further in the future.
Announcing Tata Motors' entry into the passenger and light commercial vehicle market, Tata said the group hoped to be in the country again and again "to register a commitment and a great interest" in working in South Africa.
"Our aim would be to be progressively more and more a corporate citizen of South Africa and use South Africa in due course as a springboard for exports to other countries.
"The two countries have a great deal of synergy ... South Africa and India could work together to be a stronger combination of countries than each individually has become," he said.
Tata group, a shortlisted bidders for the taxi recapitalisation programme, is known in the country for its trucks and buses.
But it has about 80 firms that operate in seven key sectors, including engineering, energy, consumer products, chemicals, communications and information systems, and services.
Rustom Nagporewalla, the country manager for Tata Motors' commercial business unit, said it would launch three car models in October and a multi-purpose vehicle at a later stage.
Without divulging sales targets for the car range, he said that they were "quite aggressive", and aimed at a market share of between 5 percent and 8 percent in the segment that it competed in within a year.
Tata has entered into a partnership with Imperial Holdings, the listed diversified transport and mobility group, in terms of which Imperial has been granted the distributorship for the cars and bakkies locally.
Nagporewalla added that Tata would have about 20 dealerships for its light commercial vehicles when they were launched in August and almost the same number for cars.
Tata did not regard South Africa as a small market but rather as a very sophisticated one.
"I think we have the possibility of providing the South African customer with a value proposition because, like China, we come from a low cost base.
"South Africa has considerable technology and skills, albeit in pockets, and we believe this will be a very useful phenomenon to leverage," he said.
"The potential of this market for us is enormous and it does not stop at vehicles."