I had the chance to visit India last week on invitation from LANXESS. There were two purposes for this visit. The first stop was for the opening of the company's production site in Jhagadia, Gujarat state, and the second stop was to attend the media roundtable discussions at the LANXESS booth at Plastindia, India's premier exhibition for the plastics & rubber industry.
Acknowledging the vast opportunities in the Indian market for specialty chemicals, LANXESS has inaugurated three new plants in India in a span of one month. The Jhagadia site is LANXESS' second largest production plant in India after its site in Nagda. The Jhagadia site is a state-of-the-art, 18-hectare complex with production facilities boasting of the most recent technology. More important, it serves as a model of an environmentally friendly site with strict standards applied and wastewater treatment plant in place to ensure compliance with environment protection trend. The site, thus, is very much similar to the company's facilities in Europe.
Such huge investment into Asia reflects the optimism and interest of major industry players see in the region. For India, the automotive industry offers vast opportunities for growth with its rising demand for rubber products and specialty materials for various automotive components. Even with the economic turmoil being faced today by some developed countries, Asia has remained resilient with demand for engineering plastics and advanced machinery & technology on the rise. We expect more big players to bring in huge investments into Asia and we will continue to monitor these developments in our future reports.
