Tata Nano, termed at the world’s cheapest car will go on sale in the neighbouring country Bangladesh. The base model Nano will cost 599,000 taka ($7900), said Abdul Mahtub Ahmad, director of Nitlol Motors, the only dealer of Tata vehicles in Bangladesh. The price is nearly triple of the value at which it is sold in India. “We are now taking orders — initially we’ll sell 3,000 Nano cars. We hope it will be a big hit in Bangladesh,” Ahmad said, adding that the Nano’s official launch would be in Dhaka on Saturday. The reason behind being such an expensive car is the 132% import duty that has to be paid on each car.
“The price will come down once we start assembling the car here. If the car becomes popular in Bangladesh, Tata has a plan to manufacture the car locally,” Ahmad said. He also added that “We anticipate the Nano will be very popular because it is extremely fuel efficient. You can drive more than 25 kilometres (15.5 miles) with a litre of gasoline.” Tata Motors launched the Nano in 2008 and it went on to capture a lot of attention. Recently they also started selling the car in Sri Lanka. However, the car was not a hit among the people due to concerns over safety, lack of cheap financing and operational hiccups after production shifted to a new plant.
