A gleaming motorcycle plant in Chakan, near Pune, is intended to be the springboard for a move by Bajaj Auto, India’s second biggest maker, to become a global force in the business of small motorcycles and scooters – a field of transport in which Asia accounts for easily the biggest fraction of the world market.
The ambitions of Bajaj – the fourth biggest maker of motorised two-wheelers in the world behind a trio of Japanese companies – underline how several leading Indian manufacturers want to use their fast domestic expansion during the past few years as a base for building up sales elsewhere.
