Chief Minister M K Stalin, who visited the Komatsu production facility in Osaka, Japan, urged the company's top officials to expand its plant in Tamil Nadu, the government said on Saturday.

The chief minister went around the plant and obtained first-hand information on the production of equipment, such as dumper trucks, hydraulic excavators, and so on. He was given a PowerPoint presentation on the plant's operation and later he held a discussion with the company's top officials including Takayuki Furukoshi and Go Kamada on the occasion.

Apart from urging the company to expand its facility in Oragadam in Tamil Nadu, the chief minister, who is on a visit to Japan to woo investors to the state, invited the company officials to participate in the Global Investors Meet in Chennai in January 2024.
The company officials replied that appropriate studies would be undertaken for the expansion, the government release said.

Tamil Nadu Industries Minister T R B Rajaa, Additional Chief Secretary S Krishnan, and Guidance Tamil Nadu's Managing Director V Vishnu were among those present during the CM's visit and discussions.

On Saturday, the chief minister visited the 16th-century Osaka Castle an invite from Osaka Province Vice Governor Nobuhiko Yamaguchi. The world-famous castle played a major role in unifying Japan during the Azuchi-Momoyama period.

"Japan is all about innovation and invention! I visited the Osaka factory of a century-old #Komatsu company that makes tools that make work easier and safer in labor-intensive industries like construction and building," the chief minister said in a tweet.

Posting a video of his visit to the plant, he said, "Already in 2007, as a minister, I opened a factory of #Komatsu in Tamil Nadu, and with the same feeling I called upon the company to invest more in Tamil Nadu and invited it for #GIM2024."