Feb 18 (Reuters) - Elon Musk's Tesla is looking

to hire senior staff in India, job advertisements posted this

week showed, signalling progress in the electric vehicle maker's

plans to enter the world's third-biggest auto market.

The postings come less than a week after Musk's meeting with

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Washington.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for

comment.

Tesla has for years planned an India market entry and even

setting up of local manufacturing. Some executives were hired

around 2022, though some top-level people quit the company after

Tesla put its India plans on hold back then.

With the automaker again scouting for showroom space in India

since late last year, it has now listed 13 jobs on its website

and social media platform LinkedIn for various customer-facing

and back-end roles based in Mumbai, India's financial capital.

Among them is a "store manager" role responsible for

overseeing and driving sales at the location, one job listing

showed, a sign that Tesla is looking to open a showroom in the

city. Delivery operations and customer support specialists are

also being sought, the ads showed.

The listings come just after Modi met Musk in the United States

last week, and discussed issues including space, mobility,

technology, and innovation.

Musk has long criticised India for having high import tariffs of

around 100% on EVs, and his company has repeatedly lobbied to

relax them. The move, however, has faced opposition from local

automakers who think Tesla's entry can hit their EV plans.

Last year, Musk was set to meet Modi during a trip to India

where he was expected to announce a potential $2 billion-$3

billion investment, but the visit was called off after Tesla

decided to lay off 10% of its global workforce amid declining

sales.

In November, Reuters reported that Tesla was also scouting for

showroom space in the country's capital city of New Delhi, and

was in early stage talks with real estate developer DLF

to help secure a location.

(Reporting by Indranil Sarkar in Bengaluru and Aditya Kalra;

Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)