The Hindu : Business : Spanish Guitar-maker to begin production in Kochi

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Friday, Mar 17, 2006

Business

Business

Spanish Guitar-maker to begin production in Kochi

Staff Reporter

CSEZ to get land for women workers' hostel

KOCHI: Spanish guitar-maker Enrique Keller has been issued a licence to take up 25,000 sq. ft. of space at SDF-17 in the Cochin Special Economic Zone to open a production unit that expects to employ about a 100 people and export 25,000 pieces of guitar annually.

Work on setting up the unit, at an expected investment of around Rs.5 crores, is likely to begin within about three months.

The Spanish company is learnt to have launched an Indian subsidiary for setting up the Kochi unit.

The guitar-maker, based in northern Spain, has been forced to outsource its work to India in the wake of stiff competition from South Korea and China. Kochi, being one of India's best-linked ports, has proved a major attraction for the guitar-maker, it is learnt.

Women's hostel

Meanwhile, it is learnt that the proposal to build a hostel for women workers at the Special Economic Zone will be taken up only in the next financial year.

According to sources, the land acquisition process for the project would be taken up only after the elections to the State Assembly.

The CSEZ authorities had persuaded the Greater Cochin Development Authority (GCDA) for providing land for building a hostel for the women workers who form a big percentage of the total workers in various units. The hostel is expected to take up about an acre of land close to the Zone.

Warehousing facility

Approximately 25,000 square foot of warehousing space at the Zone is expected to be commissioned at the end of this month.

The warehouse, being built by the Kerala Industrial Infrastructure Company for CSEZ, is aimed at the manufacturers who are operating units within the Economic Zone.

About Rs.3 crores has been invested in building the facility taking into consideration the requirement for adequate storage facility for the manufacturing units.

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