Rancon gears up to paint and assemble Mitsubishi, Proton cars
The maiden Japanese standards-compliant car facility awaits commercial production in Bangladesh
Rancon Auto Industries Limited has successfully completed the trial painting and assembling of completely knocked down Mitsubishi and Proton cars at its Tk350-crore state-of-the-art plant in Gazipur.
The first-ever Japanese standards-compliant car plant in Bangladesh awaits commercial production to deliver the first localised Mitsubishi Xpander in June, said the company's Automotive Division's Marketing Head Mohammad Fahim Hossain.
"As the government reduced import duties on parts and raw materials for local car plants, we expect to drag down Xpander price significantly," he told reporters during a visit to the plant within Rancon Industrial Park in Kashimpur, Gazipur.
The fully built unit of the multi-utility vehicle with seven seats now costs around Tk46 lakh.
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Observers expect it to come down with local production, as homegrown Fair Technologies reduced the price by around 18% for Korean Hyundai-branded Creta sport utility vehicle in 2023 and boosted its annual sales to over a thousand units that year.
"Families will love Xpander made in our globally compliant Bangladeshi plant at a much affordable price," Fahim Hossain said while demonstrating the rigorous quality control in painting the imported car bodies and assembling every single part.
The Rancon plant has a comprehensive set of advanced production zones that include a paint shop, assembly shop, quality control shop, and material warehouse.
The plant is outfitted with cutting-edge assembly tools such as electric and pneumatic tools, jib and overhead cranes, torque wrenches, and both 2-post and 4-post lifts.
These ensure high precision and safety across the production line, said Fahim.
"Our testing facilities are designed to meet global benchmarks, featuring equipment such as 3D wheel alignment machines, brake force and ABS testers, AVM and ADAS calibrators, wheel balancing machines, emission testers, and even an in-house test track," he said.
The complex also includes the only global standard vehicle testing track where every car is tested on a 2.5km spiral track including 16 major hurdles.
Alongside Mitsubishi Xpander, the plant is painting and assembling Proton X70, while the Mercedes-approved commercial vehicle line has successfully accomplished the trial assembling of Mercedes OF1623 luxury buses alongside JAC D8701 trucks.
In the pipeline are several models, such as the Proton X90, JAC T8, JAC T9, and a few MG vehicles.
Rancon Auto Industries has a dedicated team of over 250 employees, trained by the global brands.
They are gearing up for shipping around 2,000 Mitsubishi cars, 400 Proton cars, 360 Mercedes Benz buses and some 600 JAC trucks.
At the 57-acre Rancon Industrial Complex, two other companies of Rancon Group are manufacturing Suzuki motorcycles and Toshiba, LG and Samsung-branded electronics products.
