BMW will build a plant to build cars in India. With this breaking news, India is clearly the choice of not only call center and IT outsourcing, but also the tech related manufacturing. India is shaping up as the tech outsourcing hub while China is emerging as more labor intensive work that requires less intellectually capable labor force.

According to media reports from Germany, BMW has announced that it is considering building a production site in India and that a decision on entering the Indian market could be made this year. Helmut Panke, chairman of the management board, said that the Indian market offered good prospects and that BMW was holding concrete talks on different options. Last year, BMW sold just 122 cars in India, where high import duties and trading restrictions have so far made sales difficult.

German rival Mercedes already runs a production site in India and competitor Volkswagen is also considering the move. Even in February last year, however, Mr Panke said that it could be years before BMW started its own production site in India. Mr Panke's comments at the AGM yesterday show that BMW is trying to speed up plans to produce in India, possibly together with a local partner, as the car group already has done in Russia, China and Thailand.