The Hindu : Business : DuPont goes where the market is, says CEO

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jun 09, 2005

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Business

DuPont goes where the market is, says CEO

Ashok Dasgupta

No concrete plans for new facilities in India

NAGOYA (JAPAN): Even as DuPont, the highly diversified U.S.-based global major, views India as one of the fastest-growing markets in the Asia-Pacific region, it has no concrete plans for setting up new manufacturing facilities with fresh investments as yet. This is for the simple reason that the volumes are still too small to sustain operations based on global sourcing.

Explaining the rationale of DuPont's investment strategy in Asia-Pacific and other parts of the world at a press briefing at the Nagoya Expo here on Wednesday, the company's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Charles O. Holliday, said: "DuPont goes to places where the market is."

Elaborating further, he said that DuPont was alert in finding out the needs of the consumer, was quick in its response in coming out with a solution and if the volumes permit, set up manufacturing facilities in the region where the market is. All its production facilities, however, are based on the concept of global sourcing of parts and materials from its facilities in other regions.

Citing an instance, he said that China had come up as a huge market for automobiles, mainly because the global auto majors were setting up bases there owing to cheaper and skilled labour. And since the auto majors were the customers of DuPont for the auto pigment and surface coatings, it made great business sense to set up facilities there along with the R&D centres.

DuPont's operations in China fetches the global major about a billion dollars and the growth over the past ten years has been a consistent 20 per cent. In comparison, the Indian auto market, although it has crossed a million, is still too small, especially because the DuPont products are used in the luxury segment of the passenger car market.

Currently, DuPont's India operations in the field of agriculture and nutrition, insecticides, automotive paint coatings, pigments and colours, electronics and communication along with other performance materials account for an annual turnover of about $300 million with a 30 per cent year-on-year growth.

Production in Gujarat

India, Mr Holliday, said, presented a huge market in agriculture protection and insecticides. In particular, the chemical insecticide (Indoxacarb) for cotton sold under the brand name DuPont Avaunt has done exceedingly well. The company has a production centre at Savli in Gujarat where it has two units for some other crop protection products. In the same area, DuPont has one for liquid packaging systems and for its `Refinish' blending facility.

Next in line are some engineering polymers which are used for increasing the durability of roads and these polymers are used by the Indian Railways.

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