Tata Motors’ Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) reportedly has moved closer to assembling vehicles in Saudi Arabia.

Weekend media reports said it planned to assemble the upcoming, redesigned, Discovery from kits shipped from England. According to the Sunday Times, the automaker “is close to signing a deal with the Saudi government to build an assembly factory in the east of the country. The plant will initially make a new version of its popular Land Rover Discovery and is eventually expected to employ 4,000-5,000 staff.”

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A JLR spokesman said: “We can confirm that a detailed feasibility study is under way to consider Saudi Arabia and the possible future location for a Jaguar Land Rover automotive facility.

“A letter of intent has been signed between JLR and the National Industrial Clusters Development Programme to determine the commercial viability of setting up a financially sustainable automotive facility.”

The report added JLR planned to spend GBP100m to develop the facility which could be capable of building 100,000 vehicles a year and employ 4,500 workers.

Last June, a report said Saudi Arabia was promoting itself in the US as a potential automaking and vehicle distribution hub for the Middle East and that JLR had signed a letter of intent to build a plant that could make 50,000 units a year by 2017.

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JLR is building a manufacturing plant near Shanghai in a GBP1bn joint venture with Chery and also has a GBP240m assembly plant under way in Brazil which will assemble about 30,000 vehicles a year.

Other recent reports have noted that JLR uses aluminium extensively in its vehicles and that Saudi Arabia has a huge aluminium factory, part-owned by metals group Alcoa. Ratan Tata, former chairman of JLR owner, Indian conglomerate Tata, is on the board of Alcoa.

Saudi investment in the JLR plant is also expected.

See also: ANALYSIS: Jaguar Land Rover’s lightweight future