Escorts, India's leading engineering conglomerate and Tadano Group, Japan's biggest and world's leading mobile crane manufacturer, today announced their joint venture to manufacture rough terrain cranes and truck mounted cranes. The joint venture will strengthen Escorts (Q,N,C,F)* technology leadership and market presence in the material handling equipment space.

The JV will leverage the cost effective frugal Indian engineering excellence of Escorts and world leading Japanese technology from Tadano to cater to an expanding market for heavier capacity and efficient Truck & RTCranes and sophisticated truck mounted and rough terrain cranes in the 20 to 80 tonnage category. The 51:49 joint venture between Tadano and Escorts respectively will enable both partners to optimize their current and future capabilities in the segment globally.

The JV will aim to take leading position in the high tonnage crane segment in medium to long term.

Nikhil Nanda, Chairman and Managing Director, Escorts, said, "Escorts vision has always been to bring the world's best to India and take India's best to the world. The new joint venture with Tadano Group is a step towards catering to market demand for smarter, safer and bigger mechanized infrastructure solutions in the higher tonnage category. We are confident that the joint venture will enable us to tap the opportunity market segments and reinforce our leadership in construction equipment space."

Shares of the company declined Rs 3.3, or 0.37%, to trade at Rs 888.00. The total volume of shares traded was 19,774 at the BSE (12.07 p.m., Monday).