New Delhi — The Indian plant of German window profile extrusion firm Aluplast GmbH has emerged as a sizable export hub for the firm, a company executive said at the recent Acetech building products show in New Delhi.
"There is no other Aluplast plant in the whole Asia-Pacific, therefore, the whole market is served by the [India] plant, and even to the parent company also. We ... export 30 to 40 percent of the production to 18 countries including Germany," said Arun Sharma, managing director of Aluplast India Pvt. Ltd.
The Karlsruhe, Germany-based company opened the Vadodara plant in 2016.
"We have invested about 100 crore Indian rupees ($15.7 million) in the 30,000-square-meter plant and bring in latest technology from the parent group, like coextrusion of gaskets," he said.
Currently, the Vadodara plant has installed capacity of 13.2 million pounds of PVC window profiles but produces around 4.4 million pounds in line with requirements in domestic and overseas markets.
"We have around 5 percent market share in the domestic market, growing at the rate of 10 percent annually," he said.
Sharma said the Indian window market is in its early stages.
"There is a huge growth potential in the near future as currently, the PVC window market is estimated to be around 5-7 percent of the total market, compared to 55 percent in Europe," he said. "But it has the potential to reach 22 to 25 percent in the next five years."
He said the Vadodara plant also has a technical center. As part of a skill development effort, the center also offers training to business partners on window fabrication.
Currently, Aluplast is working with about 35 fabricators, which would be hiked to 40 by the end of 2018.
Family-owned Aluplast has 24 production sites and sales offices around the world.
