German chemical giant BASF is planning to set up a new engineering plant in India. It currently has a plant in Chennai and the new plant in Mumbai shall triple is current production capacity. Company has planned to increase its production capacity in India owing to the boom in the automotive sector in the country.
The automobile industry currently has 10% plastic constituents in its models in India as compared to those in the West where the plastic constituents are nearly 20%. This leaves a lot of scope for addition of plastic components in the Indian car models which would make them lighter and more fuel efficient.
Moreover, nearly all the major car companies are driving towards Indian automobile sector and some are even planning to make India as their exports hub for small cars.
"By 2020, the figure of plastic material in vehicles will go up to 25%," said Hermann Althoff, group vice-president, engineering plastics Asia Pacific, BASF South East Asia Pte Ltd.
The initial capacity of the Thane plant shall be nearly 9000 tonnes and shall be operational by mid-2009. There shall be larger investments by the company in the coming years. "BASF will be investing euro 2.5 billion in Asia during 2008-12," said Wolfgang Hapke, president, BASF East Asia.
