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SABIC to make India a R&D hub for automotives
By siliconindia
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Tuesday, 22 January 2008, 18:19 IST
New Delhi: SABIC Innovative Plastics formerly known as GE plastics is planning to expand its automotive Research and Development (R&D) operations in India. According to company sources this move is to tap the growing size of the country as an automotive hub.
Saudi Basic Industries (SABIC) acquired GE's plastics business in 2007 for $11.6 billion to form new company called SABIC Innovative plastics.
"We are planning a fully-integrated design and engineering center in India, and are also looking to set up a pilot manufacturing project here," said U Venkatakrishnan, Automotive Director.
The integrated design center will be located at Bangalore, with another satellite center at Baroda, he added. However he declined to reveal the amount of investment the company plans to make in India.
"We would be in a position to announce (the investments plan) by the third quarter (July-September) of 2008," he said.
The Bangalore center currently employs 300 people and plans to increases its head count by 50-60 people every year over the next five-year.
"We always believe in investing ahead of time. Head count will be consistent with with our growth rates," said Venkatakrishnan.
He said SABIC's Bangalore center already handles several global design operations for the company. "We want to increase that substantially."
SABIC has three more research and development center in New York, Munich and Shanghai.