The Hindu : Business : Metro Group to set up unit in West Bengal

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Nov 10, 2005

Business

Business

Metro Group to set up unit in West Bengal

Special Correspondent

Keen to expand to bigger cities

KOLKATA: Metro Group of Germany has decided to set up distribution centres in West Bengal of which the first would come up here by September 2006, Heinrich O. E. Birr, Vice-President, International Affairs, Metro Group, said.

Talking to reporters on the sidelines of the inauguration of a meeting with a delegation of food processing units from Germany, he said Rs. 70 crore would be invested in this unit. Construction would begin soon after getting the land. Mr. Birr, who, with his country-head, Harsh Bahadur, met the West Bengal Chief Minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, on Wednesday, said he was hopeful of getting the required eight acres shortly. This would be a business-to-business venture.

Exports on radar

The Metro Group has two-fold interest in India — development of its wholesale cash and carry business and exports. It has two outfits to carry on this business. Of this, the older one Metro Group Buying has been around for nearly seven years with exports of about 50 million euro. Metro Cash & Carry India started with its Bangalore operations in 2003. Mr. Birr said the group was keen to expand and any Indian city with a population of over a million was a target area. It is at present operating in 30 countries with focus on Russia, Asia Pacific and China. Its sales in 2004 were 56.4 billion euro with an employment of 2.5 lakh people.

The Managing Director of the Indian outfit, Bahadur, explained that while big hotels were one of the main customers of the company, the small and medium hotels would be the largest beneficiaries, getting advantage of a single-point sourcing of products besides the cost-benefit.

Earlier, Wolfgang von Wiese of the Institute for Quality, Hygiene Management and Food Law, said Indian food exporters would need to have International Food Standards Certification to conform to euro standards. The visit was arranged by the OAV German Asia-Pacific Business Association with the German Chamber of Commerce.

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