MUMBAI: The Aditya Birla Group has embarked on an expansion programme for its viscose staple fibre (VSF) business across geographies.

The AV Birla Group, according to a company release, has VSF manufacturing facilities in Thailand, Indonesia, India and China.

At each of these locations, further capacity expansions are under way — in Thailand by 31,000 tpa, in Indonesia by 37,000 tpa, in India by 64,000 tpa and in China by 30,000 tpa.

These brownfield expansions are slated to be competed by the second quarter of 2008 and will increase the group's VSF capacity from 5.66 lakh tpa to 7.27 lakh tpa and will entail an investment of $260 million.

While the brownfield expansions are intended to meet the growing demand for VSF in emerging textiles hubs of Asia, the group has also initiated steps to set up a 90,000 tpa greenfield capacity in the Mediterranean region that offers significant cost and logistics advantages to the group's existing VSF operations.

"This new facility with a focus on high-end products will enlarge our global footprint and help meet the requirements of customers in emerging textile hubs of West Asia, Mediterranean region and Latin American countries in a cost-effective way," according to Shailendra K. Jain, Director, responsible for the global pulp and fibre business of the group.

The VSF business is being operated through three companies — Grasim Industries in India, Thai Rayon Corporation in Thailand and Indo Bharat Rayon in Indonesia, which also oversees its Chinese operations at Birla Jingwei Fibres, China. The group has pulp plants in Canada and India and has initiated a pulp and plantation project in Laos to strengthen its backward integration.

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