A file photo shows Honda motorcycles. — Reuters photo

Motorcycle assembled in Bangladesh by Honda Motor Company, Japan’s biggest motorcycle manufacturer, is not going to hit the market any time soon as the assembling will be delayed further for at least three to six months, officials of the industries ministry said.
In September 2012, Bangladesh Steel and Engineering Corporation and Honda Motor Company had signed an agreement to establish a joint venture to initially assemble and later manufacture motorcycle by the end of December last year.
But the joint venture, Bangladesh Honda Private Ltd, could not complete procedures including getting registration from the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority and trade licence to go into operation.
By this time, a board of directors was formed to administer the company that took incorporation certificate from the office of the Register of Joint Stock Companies and Firms on December 8.
Md Ataur Rahman, chairman of the BSEC, was made the chairman and Yoichi Mizutani, manager of the Motorcycle Sales Division of Honda, was made the managing director of the company while two directors were nominated by Honda and one by BSEC.
‘The company was supposed to start motorcycle assembling by December last year. But we could not do that due mainly to procedural delay and in absence of meeting of board of directors,’ Bangladesh Honda Private Ltd director Shaik Md Mobarak Hossain told New Age last week.
The first meeting of the board of directors will be held very soon to finalise the schedule of commencing of the business, he said.
The Honda authorities of Japan have told the BSEC that they want to start the assembling by March, said Mobarak, also a director of BSEC.
But some other officials of the BSEC said it would not be possible to start the assembling before June as the authorities needed more time to complete necessary procedures including constructing plant for assembling motorcycle.
The board of directors could not even meet once and there is no date for meeting yet, they said adding that the meeting might be hold just after getting approval from the BRTA and trade licence.
According to the agreement, Bangladesh Honda Private Ltd will assemble 10,000 motorcycles in the first year, 35,000 in the second year and 70,000 in the third year, and then begin producing instead of merely assembling.
Industries ministry officials said that after successful completion of three years of assembling, the plant will go for production and manufacturing of 1,00,000 motorcycles per year.
For the next two years, the plant of the Bangladesh Honda Private Ltd will be set up in a rented plot at Sripur in Gazipur with a workforce of around a hundred.
The initial paid-up capital of the company is Tk 61 crore, and Honda will own 70 per cent of the shares of the company and BSEC the rest.
Mobarak said the price of Honda motorcycles in Bangladesh would be competitive.