The Hindu Business Line : Saint-Gobain to ramp up exports with new facility

New Delhi, Aug. 20 French architectural and automotive glass maker Saint-Gobain would boost its export operations substantially from India as its new plant in Rajasthan commences operation.

At the same time, it is also seeking to retain its current market share in the country.

The global conglomerate’s Chennai headquartered Rs 2,000-crore domestic subsidiary, Saint-Gobain Glass India, which also has a manufacturing facility in the same city, currently exports about 20 per cent of its net sales.

Saint-Gobain’s President (Flat Glass), South Asia, and Managing Director, Mr B. Santhanam, told Business Line, “Our new plant at Bhiwadi in Rajasthan, which would be operational by the first quarter of 2010, has a capacity to produce 3 lakh tonnes of float glass per annum. This would create huge capacity and initially 50 per cent of our domestic production would be sold in overseas markets like Europe.”

However, later on, the domestic market may be able to absorb the increased capacity, in which case the export component could be reduced. The company now exports value-added glasses like eco-friendly mirrors to markets such as Japan, Australia, advanced solar control glasses to West Asia and wind shields to Europe. With the additional capacity, it would also look at entering new markets. “With new capacity we hope to retain our market share,” Mr Santhanam stated.

The company expects augmented sales from the real estate sector — which is driving demand for premium quality of glass — and also the solar panels to generate electricity.

Sharing future growth projections, he commented, “As demand increases from these sectors, we expect our market share to also grow to 45-50 per cent in architectural business, 35 per cent in the auto business and the remaining from the solar business over the next 2-3 years.”

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