Japanese auto manufacturer Suzuki Motor Corporation (SMC) announced on Sunday that it will invest Rs 10,440 crore (around 150 billion yen) for manufacturing electric vehicles (EVs) and batteries in India.

“Suzuki Motor Corporation (SMC) signed MOU with the State of Gujarat, India to invest approximately 150 billion yen (approximately 104.4 billion rupees) for local manufacturing of electric vehicles (BEV) and BEV batteries,” the company said in a statement.

Of the said amount, Rs 3,100 crore will be pumped in to increase manufacturing capacity for EVs at Suzuki Motor Gujarat in 2025, Rs 73,00 crore for setting up a plant for the production of batteries for EVs in 2026. The remaining amount will be utilised to establish a vehicle recycling plant by Maruti Suzuki Toyotsu in 2025.

SMC signed an MoU with the state of Gujarat on Saturday, March 19 at the India-Japan Economic Forum held in New Delhi in the presence of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Speaking at the Forum, Toshihiro Suzuki said, “Suzuki’s future mission is to achieve carbon neutrality with small cars.”

“We will continue active investment in India to realise Self-reliant India (Atma-nirbhar Bharat),” he added.

India and Japan on Saturday announced co-operation in the areas of electric vehicles, storage systems, including batteries, charging stations and development of solar energy as part of expansion of their bilateral partnership.

Under their clean Energy Partnership (CEP), the two countries announced cooperation in areas such as electric vehicles, storage systems including batteries, electric vehicle charging infrastructure, development of solar energy; hydrogen; ammonia; etc.