Maruti Suzuki India, the country's largest carmaker, will invest Rs 4,000 crore to manufacture four-wheelers at its proposed Hansalpur unit in Gujarat.

The company's vendors and ancillary units are expected to chip in an equal amount into the project, for which the State Government has allotted a combined 700 acres.

The first phase of the project is expected to create at least 2,000 jobs, said Gujarat's Chief Minister, Mr Narendra Modi, after the two sides signed a State Support Agreement on Saturday. Ancillary units too are expected to generate an unspecified number of jobs.

Mr Shinzo Nakanishi, Managing Director, Maruti Suzuki, and Mr Maheshwar Sahu, Principal Secretary (Industries and Mining), signed the agreement

The Gujarat Government had earlier offered Maruti land near the famous Bahucharaji temple in Mehsana district. It, however, zeroed in on Hansalpur, which is around 300 km from the Mundra port, where the company has a pre-export inspection facility to ship cars to South India or outside the county.

Maruti is expected to produce 2.5 lakh cars annually by 2015-16 in the first phase at Hanslapur. Over the next decade, it plans to invest nearly Rs 18,000 crore in this facility, ramping up output to 7.5 lakh units in the next two phases.

With this, the company expects total production — including from Gurgaon and Manesar plants — to touch 20 lakh cars a year. Maruti's third plant at Manesar will also start production in 2013-14.

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