Visteon president Craig Muhlhauser, who was here to officially flag off the opening of its $150-million facility at Maraimalai Nagar near Chennai on Monday, said the company will look at other industries such as power generation, systems technology and software development which are growing markets in India for its future investments.

"We will be investing in creative and much more aggressive areas and work with our Indian subsidiaries," he replied without giving any indication of how much investments the company will be making in these areas.

Speaking to press persons, Muhlhauser said Chennai-based Visteon Powertrain Control Systems India Pvt Ltd (VPCSI) and Visteon Automotive Systems India Pvt Ltd (VASI) are looking for technological consolidation and entrepreneurship with its existing vendors.

These companies are also looking to expanding their reach outside Chennai in areas like Mumbai and Delhi. New investments will be made to set up sales outlets and marketing offices for the products manufactured by them.

While VPCSI is a 100 per cent subsidiary of Ford Motor Company, manufacturing starter motors and alternators with a capacity to produce one million units of each product, VASI is a joint venture between Ford Motor Company (which holds 90 per cent stake) and Halla Climate Control, Korea (10 per cent) manufacturing climate control systems, electronics and plastics.

According to Muhlhauser, new investment opportunities also exist in areas like new products, software, electronics and other products and services. Visteon is not averse to considering joint venture partnerships with local vendors for export production if they are able to meet the high quality standards set by the company.

Visteon has plans to aggressively market its products to new customers as well and seek additional business, Visteon India managing director Horst Herzog said.

The company will aggressively push its indigenisation efforts from the present level of 37 per cent to as much as 100 per cent as quickly as possible, but Herzog would not suggest a timeframe to achieve this. He said the company is talking to global suppliers of products like clad aluminium, engineering plastics, polymers etc to come to India and set up shop as technologies for these were not available in the country and there was big opportunity in these areas.

However, Muhlhauser said Visteon is not interested in forming joint ventures for backward integration as it feels that suppliers of raw materials have to take some risks in emerging markets if they want to increase their business volumes.

He said Visteon will be evaluating the possibilities of manufacturing two more groups like OEM automotive glass and chassis in India. Five other groups like powertrain control systems division, interior systems division (cockpits, consoles, seats etc), exterior systems division (bumpers, integrated front and rear-end systems, wipers etc), climate control systems (compressors, heat exchangers etc) and electronics (multimedia, driver information etc) are already represented in the country.

VPSCI is a 100 per cent export-oriented unit and has an investment of $72 million and manufactures starter motors and alternators. Exports will be to Ford's global operations and other international customers.

VASI, which manufactures components for automobile manufacturers in the domestic market, has an outlay of $78 million and main product lines cover climate control, electronics and plastics operations. Herzog disclosed that the company is in talks with the Tatas for supply of components to its new Indica car. Visteon also has an outfit in Bhiwadi in Rajasthan under the name Climate Systems India Ltd which manufactures aluminium radiators and has already supplied over 1 million radiators to Maruti Udyog Ltd. This outfit carries has been set up with an investment of $10 million.