JLR has signed a letter of intent with National Industrial Clusters Development Program (NICDP) to start a feasibility study.

The news follows the recent announcement of a joint venture with Chery Automobile Company to manufacture vehicles at a new plant near Shanghai, China and the separate expansion of the Jaguar Land Rover assembly at the company’s plant at Pune, India.

Dr Ralf Speth, chief executive of Jaguar Land Rover, said: ‘We are committed to further international partnerships to meet record demand for our highly sought after vehicles. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is an attractive potential development option, complementing our existing advanced facilities in Britain and recent manufacturing plans to expand in other countries including India and China.’

JLR said that opportunities have already been identified in aluminium component production. The world’s largest integrated aluminium complex, a joint venture between Saudi Arabian Mining Company and Alcoa of the US, is due to begin production in 2014 in the kingdom. In a recent interview with Autocar India, Ratan Tata, the chairman of Tata Motors, said that with JLR’s work in aluminium body development, this could make for an interesting business case.

The carmaker added that issues including level of investment, potential capacity and job creation have not yet been discussed in detail.

‘This is an exciting project that could enable Jaguar Land Rover to establish a Joint Venture partnership in a part of the world where luxury vehicle sales are expected to rise,’ added Dr Speth. ‘If we proceed, it will complement our existing expansion in the UK and elsewhere.’