Etali has announced that it will begin forklift production in Saudi Arabia by the end of the year, following meetings with potential investors in Riyadh.
The company aims to initially build a small plant with around $4 million from investors, and then expand the plant once new products are added.
David O’Callaghan, director at Etali Group, says the factory opening will “start a new era of forklift manufacturing in the Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia”.
He expects to see volume rise from around 200 units of the iLift forklifts by the end of 2013, to over 5000 units by the end of 2015 once a smaller range of forklifts has been added.
The move to full production would see as many as 500 jobs created for Saudi nationals says O’Callaghan.
Initially the company will produce diesel models in the 6-18 tonne lift range, with empty container handling forklifts, container handling forklifts and reach stackers to be added within the first three years.
Strong demand in the Saudi market for large forklift is a driver of building a production base in the Kingdom, says O’Callaghan, though ultimately the company had designs on exporting to countries in the Middle East, Asia, Europe and North America.
The Etali forklifts will be manufactured with MTU / Mercedes Benz engines, and will feature a modular design, meaning that individual components can be replaced in case of fault, enabling the machine to continue working while the module is fixed, rather than the entire machine being taken out of service.
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