Australia's Orica plans to make India production base

By siliconindia staff writer   |   Tuesday, 05 October 2004, 19:30 IST   |    6 Comments
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KOLKATA: Global explosive major Orica of Australia, which has recently upgraded its fully- owned subsidiary Indian Explosives Ltd in Jharkhand, plans to make India a major production base for Australia-Asian region. "The low cost and high quality labour in India will allow Orica to use it as a base for manufacturing products for Australia-Asia region", Orica's general manager, Asia Sanjay Dayal told PTI. Dayal, who was here after a visit to upgraded IEL plant in Gomia, Jharkhand, along with Orica managing director and CEO Malcolm Broomhead, also said that products made in India were already exported to Indonesia, Malaysia and other parts of south-east Asia. He said the proposals for using India as a base to manufacture products for other world markets were already under consideration and is expected to be finalised over the next few months. Orica has already invested more than $3 million in March this year in the Gomia plant and further investments were being evaluated, he said. The company has upgraded its Gomia production facility by 25 per cent to produce 26,000 tonne of packaged explosives annually by introducing latest international technology. IEL, formerly owned by ICI India, was acquired by Orica in December 2003 when it increased its stake in the company from 49 to 100 per cent. Orica, with a market cap of $3.36 billion, has presence in 40 countries. The IEL explosive products are used in the mining, quarrying and construction industries, Dayal said.

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